Unbound Bond
by Skybox
Summary: Harry Potter has no magic when going to Hogwarts. What is going on? A H/Hr soul bond fic with more focus on the muggle world. Story follows the first 4 years of canon. Events will be re-ordered. Horcruxes exist. Tom Riddle is the main enemy but (a good) Dumbledore can be manipulative. He and others get wrong conclusions. Disclaimer: I own nothing of this story that others own.
1. Y1: The squib who lived

**-** **Quinn, Late Afternoon,** **Thursday** **1 August 1991 =-**

Quinn was a large Gargoyle. He was designed by Rowena Ravenclaw herself and crafted with the help of the finest goblin stone-workers. The construction was done with a great eye for detail. Individual hairs were sticking out of his pig-like nose. The scales on his back fell naturally over each other as they would for creatures of flesh and blood.

He was much better than those fleshy creatures. His skin was ten times stronger and he had already lived for a millennium. No wizard could even come close to that number.

Being so old and wise, he was the most important Gargoyle of the castle. This gave him an important task. Only he, Quinn, would be allowed to guard the passage to the headmasters office.

Sometimes this vitally important task, was entertaining. He remembered vividly how he killed three dark wizards, that tried to gain access to the headmasters office in the battle of 1207.

For the most of the time, however, it was a boring job. Standing there, still as a statue waiting for someone who wanted to enter. He then had to wait for the password. When the person finally gave the correct password, he would step aside to let them pass. However, that wouldn't stop him from doing his job to the best of his capacity, which was needless to say better than anyone else's. No matter how boring the job was he would continue proving that he was the best gargoyle on the British isles, probably even the whole world.

Humans didn't make the job easy for him though. They restricted his rights to deal with trespassers and kept trying to ignore the protocols that were in place for good reasons.

In the past, he had been allowed to kill any trespasser. However, this right was restricted at what they called "too many casualties". Bullshit, he thought. If you guess a password wrong for three times, you should be decapitated. How else can you avoid people trying to guess passwords.

The headmasters didn't use an effective white-list any-more either. It used to be that the headmaster told him who could pass and if they were not on the list, they were not granted entrance. It was simple and efficient. Still, the headmasters wanted to make it easier for themselves and just added every newborn witch and wizard to the white-list in advance. This quite efficiently defeated its purpose. They were quite stupid, Quinn thought. But that wouldn't stop him doing his job.

Since that time, he had been unable to prevent attackers under Polyjuice. Not because he didn't see them but because they were on the white-list. Quinn had to let them pass once they provided the correct password. According to the protocol, Polyjuice was allowed. After all, the white-list would stop the attacks.

He felt that he, the big Quinn, had become rather useless. Yes, he was an unhappy gargoyle and felt that his skills perfected over centuries were being underutilized and under-appreciated. He also felt that the people in the castle didn't properly understand the importance of the task bestowed to him.

From far, Quinn heard a rather large man approaching. The sound his feet made while colliding with the grounds were heavy. The distinct pattern sounded like Rubeus Hagrid.

The gargoyle looked at the approaching man. He was three and a half meters high. His wild brown beard was like a picture frame for his kind face. His old brown coat waved through the air while he was walking to him. He looked like Hagrid.

The rather large man stopped in front of the statue revealing a distinct smell. The outside life the man was subjected to, combined with the smell of giant-like sweat were pretty unique. The man smelled like Hagrid.

The castle magic revealed that his name was Rubeus Hagrid.

He looked like Hagrid, he smelled like Hagrid, he sounded like Hagrid and magic itself, identified him to be Hagrid. Therefore, it seemed to be fairly likely that this guy was in fact Rubeus Hagrid.

He checked whether Rubeus Hagrid was on the white-list. The fact that every single one of the witches and wizards born in the last 683 years was on the white-list didn't matter. There was a protocol and Quinn would follow it. A lack of changes in the list wouldn't let him slacking off.

After checking the rather large list he found out that Rubeus Hagrid was indeed the alphabetically ordered white-list. As step one was complete, he went to step two of the protocol.

With the magical runes in his body, he erupted a magical field around them. This magical field would stop any people trying to overhear the password. With this field activated, he silently waited for the big man, who was most likely called Rubeus Hagrid, to speak the password.

"Marshmallow" the big man answered, not being heard by anyone else but him. He checked that it was indeed the password that was set 17 days, 3 hours and 52 minutes ago.

As that was the current correct password, the gargoyle stepped aside allowing the large man to pass and listened as he started walking up the spiral staircase.

"Really?" the gargoyle thought. "Humans are getting worse and worse at choosing proper passwords." Who would put such a bad password as a form of security. Anyone can guess it. He had to admit, it was not the worst password he heard, not by far.

The half-giant squeezed himself through the hole. He scratched himself on his left arm as he started climbing the staircase while being slightly bent over. It was obviously made for smaller people.

Quinn knew he could easily make the hole bigger. If he would be asked, he would do so. However, without the request he was not allowed to try to help people. After all, the users of Hogwarts should be aware of the details of the protocol. Rowena Ravenclaw had made a diamen that should inform the headmaster of all the details of the protocol.

 **-= Albus Dumbledore =-**

Albus Dumbledore was reading a nice muggle book. The cover had a green hand drawn picture of a forest and some mountains. He had just completed the first few pages when he was interrupted by a distinct sound. Knowing what it meant, he looked in a small mirror attached to his desk. This mirror, showed him who wanted to enter his office.

Recognizing the rather large man, he waited to the right moment. Just before his grounds-keeper would knock. At the exact right time, he spoke in his old warm voice. "Come in Hagrid".

Nine years ago, Hagrid had accidentally knocked the door out of his frame. Since the incident, he gave people entrance before knocking. The added mystery of responding to the knock before it happened was an added bonus of course.

Hagrid stepped into his office, seemingly a bit frustrated about not being able to knock. On his left arm, he had a minor wound but the man didn't seem to care much. Probably his giant blood flowing through his veins.

Looking over his book he followed the eyes of the rather large man. Hagrid was looking at the countless magical devices spread around in his office. He was obviously wondering about the origin and functionality of some of them. Many people did. Well, those were secrets that he would keep for himself. The mysterious items were a crucial part of the "wise old man" image Dumbledore was so fond of.

Of course, Albus knew the secrets of most devices. Only from one device he couldn't figure out what it did, not that he would ever admit that to anyone of course.

Each device was special in his own way. Some devices would give signals, like puffs of strangely coloured clouds, small melodies of pop muggle songs or frankly anything you could imagine. Ssome of them would change their appearance from day to day. A few of them changed depending on the angle you looked at them. And one of them had a different function if you didn't have your morning tea.

While he put his book away, he noticed how the headmaster was now looking with awe in his eyes at the numberous paintings. Each headmaster was there to provide him with their knowledge and give him advice. At least, that was the theory. In practice they just gave him critics or were chatting in dead and old languages. If they gave advice, most of it was unsolicited, unhelpful and generally unwanted.

Hagrid politely greeted old headmaster. "Good afternoon, Dumbledore"

"What do you mean?" the headmaster responded smiling. He was thinking about the book he just read and couldn't help himself. "Do you wish me a good afternoon, or mean that it is a good afternoon whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this afternoon; or that it is an afternoon to be good on?"

Hagrid looked a bit too tired to think about the words of wisdom. "Whatever you like." the huge man said, dismissing the response to his great disappointment.

The grounds-keeper flopped down on an old wooden chair finally letting his feet rest. It was a wooden chair not quite like most others in the castle, the chair was crafted from thick pieces of wood and specially made to handle the increased weight of the large man. It was a bit rough at some places but the craftsmanship was still obvious in the construction. Despite the increased durability of the chair it still creaked audibly under the weight of the grounds-keeper who sat down a bit faster due to exhaustion than he originally intended.

He offered a lemon drop to Hagrid, which the man promptly turned down, before continuing to the main point of the meeting. "I assume you didn't have any problems picking up the item." he continued.

Hagrid's hand went into one of his brown coats pockets and produced a small paper bag. "Yeah, here I have it."

The groundskeeper was just about to pull the stone from the bag when he stopped him. It wouldn't do to inform the groundskeeper that couldn't keep his mouth shut, that this stone was a fake. He had retrieved the actual stone earlier during the day but Hagrid was a distraction. Not that it had been needed, this time.

To give a reason to the other man, Dumbledore told him a fake reason. "Even at the places where we feel safe, we cannot be too careful."

He took the bag from Hagrid in his right hand. With the other hand, he opened his bottom right drawer. Moving some multicolored socks away, he made place for the stone. After placing the bag in the drawer he closed it. All this was done, while not revealing the content of the bag.

"It will be safe at Hogwarts." Hagrid said confidently. "If anyone can keep it safe, it is you."

"Thank you for going out of your way to retrieve it." He answered while really meaning it. It was sometimes difficult keeping dark wizards in the dark.

Then he continued his conversation with the rather large man "Did you run into any unusual situations during your trip? I heard there was quite some commotion around the Leaky Caldron this morning."

Hagrid looked around silently for a moment, as if looking for the correct words to express his thoughts. When his eyes revealed he had found a start, he answered the question "Not with the stone. But there were some problems with Harry."

The headmaster leaned a bit forward. He had thought that someone may have made attempts on getting the stone. He didn't expect any problems with the Boy-Who-Lived though. Harry was an important asset, both politically and for the prophecy. He was a key piece in many of his plans and any unplanned situation involving the boy could have great consequences. Many scenario's played in his head what could have gone wrong. He had to know what went wrong. In a lower and faster voice, he asked the next few questions. "You did help him with shopping? Did something go wrong at the shopping? Did he get all his school supplies? Is he alright?"

"The shopping went okay." the giant answered. "I had to drive a few fans away and some small problems at Ollivander's." he answered before continuing. "However, that is not what I was referring to."

"The Dursley's never informed him about Magic and how their parents died. They told them James and Lily died in a car crash." continued Hagrid in a trembled voice. Tears started forming in his eyes. The large man took a rater dirty handkerchief out of his pocket. He wiped his tears away and to blow his nose in a rather loud sound. Albus started walking over to his liquor cabinet, anticipating the need for some relief for his grounds-keeper.

"They call him either freak or boy." Hagrid continued with a sense of dread on his quite white face. "He is very small and much to skinny for my liking, so I doubt they are feeding him enough. I wouldn't be surprised if he is physically abused as well."

The headmaster understood that something was wrong. However, he had to do some damage control, no matter the problem he had to make sure that the boy continued going along the intended path. "Unfortunately, that house is the only place he would be safe. The blood wards are the strongest wards in existence. After all, they are powered by love, the strongest form of magic."

Hagrid visibly had some difficulty not raising his voice. "Love?" he almost shouted. "I don't think he is loved by that family. They hate and despite him."

Trying to calm the half-giant and reassuring himself, Albus started to explain. "I have monitored the wards myself. Without love towards harry, the wards would have collapsed a long time ago." the headmaster took a small breath before continuing his answer. "Therefore, they must love him. It may be hidden deep down, in such a way that they don't show it. But there must be love nonetheless."

Seeing that Hagrid was not really convinced, he continued "However, I will talk with Harry about it when he is at school. If it is as bad as you say, I can work out an alternative solution."

"That would be nice" Hagrid answered wiping tears away with his hand. "He was such a beautiful baby when we dropped him off. And I would have hate it if he …." Emotions seemed to have overtaken the man who could not finish his sentence. After a second, he unsuccessfully tried to start over "James and Lily's son …."

Albus was very good at reading people and he didn't fail this time. "Hagrid, do you want something to drink?" he asked.

"Do you have some Firewhiskey?" he finally asked.

The headmaster gave him a bottle and a mug. "Please continue your story when you're ready."

While most people would never use a mug in combination with Firewhiskey, the blood of the giants made it possible for Hagrid to tolerate much higher levels of Alcohol. He still became drunk but he wouldn't get a headacke.

That was also a reason that he even considered giving his old friend a mug. Hagrid obviously thought this was a good idea. He took the bottle and emptied it in the cup. Then he took the mug and brought it to his lips. After emptying it, much faster than would even be healthy for him, he seemed to somewhat calmed down.

With a bit of new courage Hagrid was to continue his story. "He doesn't seem to have a lot of magic."

This news could prove to be a bigger problem than any less than optimal family situation. A bad family relationship could be fixed. Even if the wards would fail, Harry could be moved to a different location. The absence of magic could not be fixed that easily.

Harry Potter was undoubtedly the boy of the prophecy. The prophecy hinted at some kind of incredible magic. Magic powerful to defeat Voldemort. If his magic was less than average that could very well become a problem. Although there were dark rituals that could increase the boy's power, that would defeat the purpose of his plan. After all the boy should become the new champion of the light. How could harry become that champion? It was a problem for which the headmaster didn't have the answer at hand.

He had to find out why the boy didn't seem to have magic. Maybe the boy was affected by the abuse in unusual ways. If that was the case, he had to be removed from the harmful environment. Still more research had to be taken before coming to such a decision.

"He cannot remember a single case of accidental magic." Hagrid explained. "In addition, the want he got at Ollivander didn't really react to his magic."

"What kind of wand?"

"10¾" vine wood, dragon heartstring"

That was at least a bit of relief. The wand woods weren't poor choices. Vine wood not the most common for wands, but the wielders often tried to proof themselves. Dragon heartstring were wands with slightly more power than most wands.

 **-= Albus Dumbledore =-**

Within the hour, the headmaster with a long white beard was standing in front of the door on Privet Drive. The headmaster looked around, noticing that the garden was neatly trimmed and without much inspiration.

There were a few muggles in the street, all seemingly ignoring him. This wasn't surprising as if he was invisible. A well applied disillusionment charm could be very useful.

He silently approached number 4 and took a reading from the wards. They were reasonably strong. Not as strong as he might have hoped but it would still be sufficient to make sure the boy remained protected.

He drew his wand, pointing it to the front door.

"Alohomora" he whispered. As on command, the door opened seemingly on it's own.

Without making a sound he sneaked into the house. A well applied silencing silencing was very useful. Especially in combination with disillusion charm. Through the thoroughly cleaned hallway he walked to the half open living room door. He gently pushed against it, opening it further. This allowed him to enter the living room. with a gentle flick of his wand, he applied a notice me not charm at the same time as stepping inside.

In the living room, he saw four people eating a meal. The food consisted of mashed potatoes, some roasted beef and plenty of gravy. A small, untouched, bowl of salad sat in the corner of the table while one of them poured some more gravy over his meal. Vernon, Petunia, Dudley and Harry. The boy sat quietly on a corner of the table and seemed greatly appreciate, the in comparison, small amount of potatoes he had on his place. There were sufficient explanations. Maybe the boy was a picky eater or maybe he already ate most of it. Still, he would make a mental note of it.

He didn't seem to have the best clothing, but Albus has not kept up with muggle fashion. Since they started using tea in the process of making shirts he complete lost it.

He had to find out whether or not the boy was abused. The easiest way was by using mind reading. Even though it was marginally legal, it would be the best solution for this case.

Legilimency didn't work on muggles. The spell required a magical core in the target to connect to. As muggles lacked a magical core the spell could not be able to make a connection with it. On wizards or withes it could be used though. From the core, the spell could enter the target's mind and give the caster access to it's thoughts and memories.

Therefore only one person in this room could be used to give Albus the information he required. He had to cast legilimency on Harry Potter.

Ignoring the finer details of the law for the greater good, he put his wand in position. The spell to enter the boy's mind came easily.

"Legilimency"

As the spell connected, he felt the magical core. He ordered the magic to form a temporary connection. With this connection he could access Harry's core. From the core he start probing around to find the mind.

He pushed in a randomly chosen direction. It felt like he was pushing at thin air. He felt no resistance but also no mind.

It was not unusual to be required to poke around a couple of times before finding the mind. They tend to drift, so he poked a second time.

After the fifth attempt, Albus was starting to get a bit worried. In most cases, it was possible to find someone's mind in three tries. Five tries and not finding anything was unusual. However, at the sixth attempt he did collide with what must be Harry's subconscious.

Knowing the direction, he started trying to read the boy's memories. Soon he would know what was happening in this house.

At least that was the plan.

When he entered the boy's mind-scape, he saw a dark stone wall. It was at least 50 meters high and as long as the eye could reach. It was made of solid bricks without cracks. On the ground was a blackish liquid. It was sticky and it impacted his movement.

He wondered how a young child like Harry could already have a fully developed mindscape. Suddenly, he noticed an orange light from far. It seemed to grow and come closer. Recognizing it as fire, he tried to run away. Feeling the liquid on the ground being sticky, he couldn't move.

This was a trap.

He quickly channeled his magic through his legs to remove the liquid at his legs. This allowed him to come free and escape just in time.

When feeling the presence of the real world again, he lost his balance. As he tried not to fall over, he accidentally knocked over a vase.

The family looked up, surprised at the sudden sound. As Petunia came closer to investigate, the headmaster crawled away. Dumbledore promptly made his way outside of the wards and disapparated. He was wondering how it was that an eleven year old boy was so proficient at the mind arts.

One thing was for sure. Harry was magical.

 **-= Harry Potter, Thursday 15 August 1991, Evening =-**

Harry was unaware that in the last few weeks his future headmaster visited his house more than once. Sometimes he had been doing a chore, but more often than not he could be found in his room reading his new books. This was mainly to study ahead for his school year. Although it hadn't started he wanted to be prepared. One time, he even looked straight through the old man disillusioned body, not that Harry would be able to notice that of course.

The old man at that time, had been a bit worried. He had been sure that Harry had been looking at him. In fact, he had wondered till three at night how the boy looked through his charms.

Although, Harry had been putting a lot of effort in his studies, he wasn't that knowledgeable. He even knew less than the average first year student at Hogwarts.

To remedy this, he had made an agreement with the Dursley's. He was allowed to read in the afternoon and evening if he did his chores in the morning. They didn't allow him to practice, but reading was tolerated as long as he didn't bother anyone and kept out of sight.

For Harry, this was very important. He didn't have any magical accidents as far as he could remember. To compensate for his apparent lack of magic he planned to spend a lot of time studying and make sure that he knew the theory.

Currently he was reading an interesting chapter about bezoars. They seemed quite useful, counteracting most simple poisons. He made a mental note buying one, the next time he would be in Diagon Alley. Briefly he wondered why something like that wouldn't be part of the standard school equipment. Given the large list of poisons he had seen in just the index of this single book alone, there must be a lot of accidents. He quickly concluded that carrying the bezoars was the task of the teachers.

Flipping the page he heard some kind of popping noise from outside. He sat up, not recognizing it and nobody else in the house seemed to react to it. He must have imagined it. A second pop, not much later, made him curious.

Walking over to the window he looked outside. In the neat garden he spent the entire morning trimming he saw an unusual sight. Two men wearing skull masks man were looking around the garden. One of them being slightly larger than the other. Their dark cloaks waved in the slight breeze as they examined the address. He could see that they carried wands in their hands.

It was a peculiar sight. Harry couldn't help to wonder what his uncle and aunt would say about such an abnormal sight. They would probably be afraid that the neighbors would see them. Quite likely, they would call the police not wanting to deal with something like this themselves.

A month ago, it would have been unbelievable for him. Now he thought these were some kind of wizards. They were the only people who he had ever seen wearing cloaks and wands. Although, he hadn't heard of wizards wearing skull masks before.

Unaware that the two people would quite well fit in the description of a Death Eater, Harry was not alarmed. Although Hagrid had told him about Voldemort, he didn't mention what their followers were called. Neither did he mention anything how they looked like.

As Harry was not informed well enough how dangerous these people could be, he was curious. What were the two wizards doing in their garden. He opened the window and asked in a quiet but polite voice "Hello there. What are you looking for?"

The larger man looked up and asked in a slightly sneering voice "Are you Harry Potter?"

Harry didn't know why the man sneered but dismissed it. He probably misjudged the situation anyway. It is not easy to spot emotions behind these masks. Not paying attention to the man's rude voice, Harry answered in a pleading voice "Yes, but can you speak a bit more quiet? I don't think uncle Vernon likes it if there are two wizards in his garden."

The two masked people looked at each other. They talked quietly with each other. Their voice was so low that harry couldn't hear a word they were saying, at least he didn't have to worry about anyone else hearing the two. Looking back at Harry, they appeared to have come to a conclusion.

"Ah, this mission will be easy." One on them said while drawing his wand. He pointed the wand at Harry and started an incantation. When seeing the wand being raised, the boy finally suspected he might be in trouble.

He didn't wait for the incantation to be finished. While hearing some sort of abracadabra, instinct took over.

A bolt of Green light shot towards him. He recognised it as some kind of attack and it was probably dangerous.

Making himself small and using the windowsill as cover, he ducked away. The spell hit the window that appeared to explode. Shards of glass rained over him. This was dangerous. He had to get away. He quickly crawled over the floor barefooted, cutting himself on some glass, which felt like nails piercing through his feet. But he had to keep moving, away from the danger, to the other side of the room.

Reaching the much safer place, he started thinking. The people would make it inside soon. He had to hide himself. Going over the possible places, he chose a spot and made his way towards it.

Making sure to move silently, he walked to his destination. He had a plenty of experience with moving silently. Sometimes he had to sneak to the fridge at night in order to make sure he had enough to eat.

Arriving at his hiding spot he quickly hid himself, lying there between some old pieces of cloth.

 **-= Death Eaters =-**

Meanwhile the death eaters were in a discussion.

"You idiot" the smaller one said. "This could have been all over by now, but you couldn't even hit a 11 year old child."

"Shut up, I didn't miss, he dodged." the other death eater hissed. "We can easily kill him the next time. Why don't yourself useful for once and get the door open."

The smaller death eater started casting. He used some ward detection spells but no active wards lid up. There was an unknown, rather complex but unpowered ward, nothing that would stop them. He would have expected the most famous boy in the wizarding world to be a bit better protected than a single inactive ward in a muggle neighbourhood but he was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

A simple spell opened the front door, revealing a rather well kept corridor. They entered the building, dirtying the spotless floor with their muddy boots.

Behind them, they closed the door and sealed the door. The back-door got the same treatment, trapping the Dursley's and Harry inside the house. They would not let them be outsmarted by an eleven year old boy.

Since the boy was last seen upstairs, they ignored the ground floor for now. Walking upstairs, their heavy boots colliding with the stairs making a loud stomping noise.

As they got upstairs, they were aggressively greeted by a shouting large man, who more resembled a walrus. "Who are you, what are you doing here, don't tell me you are one of those freaks?"

How did this muggle dare to question them? Who is he calling people freaks? He should be punished. A cruciatus curse escaped the lips of the first death eater.

He laughed as he saw pain shooting through the muggles body. Knowing the spell felt like daggers pierced his body everywhere. The muggle, unable to use his limbs fell over. Pathetic. His muscles twitched from the stab wounds he must have felt.

The masked man picked up the twitching body and hissed in his ears. "That's for calling us, freaks you filthy muggle"

He ignored the tears from the walrus's face when he asked "Why are you here?"

The Death Eater looked at the man and wanted to break him "I come to kill Harry Potter. Tell me where he is."

He was disappointed when the walrus seemed to give up so soon when he answered. "Second room on the right".

He was being strangely helpful and he couldn't punish him for that. He would have hoped him to beg for the boys life or something just so he had an excuse to torture the fat muggle some more, but he just gave him up, like he didn't want to have him in the first place.

The man begged again. "Please, leave us alone" he begged "We never wanted that freak here".

That was a good one. Most families in the wizarding world would give a lot for the chance to raise that boy. But the one place that did raise him was the one place that didn't want him. The irony was not missed to the Death Eater.

Still, the muggle man had to be punished. "We do not grant requests." he responded to the crying man. "CRUCIO"

He saw that the man was in pain again. New daggers seem to stab him at new points. He laughed, knowing that the pain would seem like an eternity until it would lessen.

Moonlight shone through the broken window revealing a small bedroom. The shards of glass reflected some of the light, giving the whole room a spooky appearance. There was a sagging bed and some broken toys in the corner, a few drawers with a damaged handle and a visibly worn wardrobe that was a little bit open.

In bed lay a potions book which looked like one of the only new things in the room.

"Come out, wherever you are" the first death eater said "and we will make it quick and painless."

There was no response.

"Ah, you want to play the hard way" the death eater said, grinning. It was really an enjoyable evening.

He and his friend started to search systematically. They examined corner by corner, starting with the bed. He wasn't under the bed. After that, one of them arrived at the wardrobe. It such as obvious hiding spot that he silently laughed at the foolish attempt of hiding the boy was making.

When he opened the door, he opened the creaking doors shouting "Gotcha".

Light fell in the wooden cabinet. It revealed a few old jackets and pants hanging down next to a pair of new, unworn, Hogwarts uniforms. A quick glance showed them there was no boy in here.

 **-= Harry Potter =-**

"Gotcha" Harry heard someone shouting from the floor below him. It was followed with a less loud swear. "Damn, I could have sworn he would have hidden himself there."

Harry felt lucky that the masked people hadn't discovered he sneaked up to the attic while they are getting into the house. In the attic he found an old clothing basket where hid himself in.

He had listened to the voices from the floor below and was now sure they wanted to kill him.

His heart was beating like crazy until he heard one of the masked men say "Come over here. I found a blood trail I think."  
After hearing that he became so terrified that he could swear his heart skipped a beat or two.

"Blood trail?" he asked to himself. "What kind of blood trail?" Oh no, the glass from the window. If he cut himself there, it may have left a trail. If that's the case, the trail would likely lead directly to him.

He could try to move somewhere else. But, the blood trail would just give him away again. And there was still the chance he would not be found in his current hiding spot.

Unable to find something better, he prayed that the inevitable discovery would not happen. Harry wasn't really religious but when confronted with a situation of certain death, most people started to pray.

He listened to the sound of two pairs of boots walking up the stairs. The creaking of the old door as it opened and closed.

"Harry" one of the men whispered "where are you?". He could hear they were close. Maybe a meter or so away.

"Bombardo" the other shouted. He heard an explosion. Wood got splintered. Metal fell on the floor. Porcelain shattered. It must be a mess outside.

"Bombardo" he shouted again. The sound of a second explosion attacked his hears. He heard more metal falling.

"Bombardo" was shouted for a third time. The cloth basket was hit. Shards of wood flew beside his face. A heat wave went over him.

The light blinded him for a moment but when he could see again, he saw the two men looking at him.

"Looks like you lost your game of hide and seek, Potter." he said while raising his wand.

"It is time for you to die" the other said, smiling.

"AVADA KEDAVRA"

He would know, even before the incantation was done, that he would not be able to dodge the green light. There was nothing he could do.

 **Authors Note:**

 **How will Harry survive this? Think about it for a minute before clicking 'next'. A hint can be found in 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' by J. K. Roling.**

 **For those who noticed that I messed up between the names Dudley and Dursley, thanks for pointing it out. It has been corrected.**


	2. Y1: A crazy castle

**-= Albus Dumbledore, Evening 15 August 1991 =-**

Albus Dumbledore was in his office working late preparing class schedules for next term. It was always a puzzle when each teacher would teach what class. Especially from third year onwards, with the electives, this was a problem. Usually he would let McGonagall handle something as minor minor as class scheduling but this year was different, this year Harry Potter would go to Hogwarts. It was important, for the greater good, that the obviously Gryffindor boy, would take his potions lessons together with the Slytherins.

All around him in the office sat the usual collection of ward observers, wand trackers, people monitors and other various interesting and not-so-interesting devices, the small eight handed dial was one of his favourites, it counted the number of sneezes by left handed witches within the borders of France. Usually he didn't pay much attention to them, most of them remain quiet and learning to tune out the few of them that were always buzzing or beeping around was one of the first things a new headmaster would be required to learn.

However, today one of the detectors made a buzzing noise while emitting pink smoke, that particular device hadn't made a single noise in the almost 10 years it has been sitting on one of his bookshelves.

Frustrated, Dumbledore put his work away and walked over to the device. He picked it from the shelf and looked at it. It was the health monitor on Harry Potter, after spinning it counter-clockwise 3 times to get a good reading he confirmed his fears. It seemed Harry was hurt.

"Fawkes" he asked his feathered companion. "Can you bring me to Number 4, Privet Drive?"

The phoenix looked a bit sad at the wizard. He didn't like to be used for mere transport.

"I know you don't like to transport Wizards. But this is an emergency" Dumbledore pleaded. "I won't convert you in a transport business"

The bird flew on his old friend's shoulder, burst out in flames and disappeared from the office.

Many miles away, in the quiet dimly illuminated street of Privet Drive, a flame appeared and Albus Dumbledore stepped out. Although it was unlikely that a muggle would be out in the hour in a neighbourhood like this Albus still applied a quick notice-me-not charm, more out of routine than real fear or being noticed. Arriving at the magically sealed front door, a seal which was quickly taken care of by the elder wand, he walked inside to investigate, hiding himself further with the disillusionment and silencing charm. On the otherwise perfectly spotless floor, he could see footprints in mud going up the stairs. The footprints made him worry, the state of the carpet made it unlikely that such dirty prints would be left by any of the regular residents of the house. Silently, he went up the stairs, following the trail.

The worry changed in panic when he saw Vernon Dursely lying down on the floor.

His muscles twitched in the far to familiar way that only the cruciatus curse could cause, which didn't add to the already very unlikely hope that the boy had simply hurt himself while playing and his monitor of him was overreacting. This means dark wizards of some kind without leaving any doubt.

"Looks like we found you at last, Potter.", sounded from the stairs leading to the attic.

He quickened his pace and practically ran up the stairs. He saw a pair of wizard dressed in Death Eater robes crouched around a black-haired boy. All hope seemed to be lost as one of them started saying the dreaded words:

AVADA …

Time seemed to slow down. Normally he wouldn't resolve to such violence but in defence it was unfortunately sometimes necessary. A quick jab of his wand sent a salvo of spells to the death eaters. He used a spell chain with a stunner and a cutting curse combined. The closest one fell first with the stunner. He used another cutting curse on the other person's wand, but was apparently too late. He completed his killing curse and a green flash lit the room.

Albus felt defeated. All his plans crashed down with two words. The old headmaster fell on his knees and began to sob. He felt particularly old at this moment. Young Harry was dead, or so he thought.

 **-= Harry Potter =-**

Harry was sure he would die. As the two men looked over him and aimed their wands at him, time seemed to slow down.

AVA…

From his corner of his eye he saw something shooting spells at the masked men.

…DA

The first spell, a red bolt, hit the cloaked man on the left. He fell face-down on the ground.

KEDA…

The second spell seemed to miss the second person, instead hitting his wand right in middle forming cracks.

…VRA

Green light erupted from the newly formed cracks, blinding him in the process. He prepared himself for incoming pain but nothing like that happened.

When he could see again, he saw two men on the ground. A quick examination showed him that the first man was unconscious but breathed.

The second man, the one with the broken wand that cast the green colored spell, didn't seem to breath.

He didn't know or care who had attacked them or why, only that he was safe, for the moment. He quickly tried to sneak downstairs. There he would evaluate the situation. If he had an incredible amount of luck, his aunt and uncle would not have noticed it.

When he was almost at the stairs, he seemed to trip over something. He didn't really see what he hit as he was to stressed from the entire ordeal..

With a lot of sound he fell down the stairs. His back, his arms, his head and his legs hurt when he was down at the first floor.

Looking up he saw his aunt. She had a red face and started shouting

"YOU FREAK

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY VERNON?

SEE WHAT YOUR FREAKISHNESS DOES

YOU WILL NOT GO TO HOGWARTS

INTO YOUR CUPBOARD NOW

AND A WEEK NO FOOD"

Harry froze. Unable to decide what to do. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard a kind voice. "Let me handle this, Harry."

Unable to think of anything better, he agreed.

 **-= Harry Potter, 16 August 1991 =-**

The next thing he remembered was opening his eyes in a bright room from what looked very much like a thousand year old castle. He didn't recognize the place at all, and started wondering where he was.

A trick that sometimes helps is retracing your memories. Harry did this. the last thing he could remember was masked men shooting green spells, his uncle being tortured and he almost dying. Not something that seemed very likely, all things considered, and it seemed much more plausible that all of that was only a dream.

Still, the question about either his life being apparently part of the plot of some book or movie or him having some incredibly lifelike dreams didn't help him answer the question he had about his current location.

He looked around in the room. There were a couple of beds, all of them being surrounded by a curtain. This was probably to give people privacy. His uncle lay in one of the other beds, visibly putting strain on the simple wooden frame. Based on his lack of movement he was likely asleep.

Somehow, the room reminded him about a hospital. Although he was sure he has never been in a hospital, the cleanness and the beds looked like they could belong to one and there was a distinct smell of "cleanness" that he could only imagine being in a hospital room.

It wasn't that he never got injured. No, he had received plenty of injuries of the years at the hand of his various family members. It was rather that his relatives didn't seem to find a broken bone or two important enough to interrupt their afternoon tea and bring him to the hospital. Or that they didn't want him to go because what the neighbours would think.

So for all he knew, this could be how hospitals looked like. On the other hand, he was quite sure that hospitals were not build in castles. Still it the room looked like an unlikely combination between what he imagined a castle to look like while being filled by things he would expect in a hospital. This left him puzzled for quite some time as he lay there in the "probably a hospital room".

A woman in a red robe with a white front walked into the room. The woman managed to have the perfect look of a nurse despite the robes that she wear, something he was quite sure the nurses at the local hospital didn't wear. She first took a look at his uncle, waving her wand a couple of times above his still-sleeping body while a quill was floating and making notes at a levitating piece of parchment, seemingly excited about doing so.

When the woman was done examining his uncle, she noticed he was awake and walked towards him. Arriving she said "Ahhh, mister Potter, I am Madame Pomfrey, the Hogwarts matron. Albus brought you and your uncle into the Hogwarts hospital wing."

"May I take a quick examination?" she asked, but not exactly waiting for a conformation.

She first looked at his feet who were bound in bandages. She took them off, waved a couple of times with her wand and told harry "The glass and the cuts in your feet are fully healed."

Then she examined Harry's left arm and back. "The two broken bones are completely mended" she continued.

"However, you show some signs from malnutrition." she concluded quickly. "It seems like you are underfed. I will put you on a special diet."

"Eh, thank you."

"You're welcome."

"what happened to Uncle Vernon?" he asked.

"He was hit by a very nasty curse, one of the nastiest, the cruciatus curse. I put him in a temporary magical sleep to avoid going insane. The after-effects from the curse hurt a lot. Over a couple of days we will know whether he kept his sanity."

"Oh" harry said while being sad. He didn't like his uncle but that didn't mean he deserved to be hit by such a curse.

"You are allowed to eat in the great hall and visit the library if you so desire. I heard professor Dumbledore wanted to talk with you, after breakfast. Because of this, I ask you to eat breakfast here, this time. You can ask my house elf Flippy."

Harry was unsure who Flippy was or what a house elf was.

He didn't even know where he or she would be. If he searched for it, he may get lost. He didn't know what to, so he asked curiously "Flippy?", not expecting an answer.

He was just finished when a strange creature, the size of a child popped in. It had large floppy ears and huge eyes and seemed very excited to be there. "How can Flippy help sir Mister Potter" it asked, looking intensely at the surprised boy. Completely overwhelmed by both the sudden appearance and the general appearance of the creature it took him a minute or so to realize that the small creature had asked him a question. Harry finally said "Could I have some breakfast, if it isn't too much work."

"Oh no, It is no problem at all." the creature assured, seemingly not bothered by the large amount of time it took Harry to respond to the question. "What does sir Mister Potter want to eat?"

"Madame Pomfrey gave me a diet." he managed to stutter. "You can ask her."

A few minutes later Harry was eating a very nice breakfast. It was somewhat like an English breakfast. He had a sandwich with fried eggs. Sausages and baked beans. A small salad and a mix of fruit and vegetable juices.

The creature whatever it was, provided Harry with a lot of food. Halfway, he felt like he was really full.

 **-= Quinn =-**

From far, Quinn heard two people approaching. A middle-ages woman and a male boy. The distinct footstep-sounds indicated that she sounded like Poppy Pomfrey.

The gargoyle looked at the two, and she appeared like Pomfrey. The other one was a quite skinny boy. He had green eyes, raven-like hair and a curse scar, the scar being an obvious piece of dark magic.

In the past, he would have not let anyone with such blatant dark magic entry in the office and enact the death penalty on any daring to use such vile magics. But the entry restrictions on dark wizards had been removed in the late seventeenth century and he hasn't been allowed to enact such "inhumane penalties" for a long time by now. Hence, he continued following normal protocol procedures.

The castle magic informed him that the middle aged woman was named Poppy Pomfrey. She was on the white-list.

The boy was a bit stranger. The castle magic revealed his name, or rather his three names. Two souls in a single body was reasonable common. It wasn't as if every third person had them but he had certainly seen them before. He would meet two or three of them every century. Even this year, one of the teachers had two souls. This was however only the second time he found three souls connected to a single body.

With all three of the boy's souls being on the white-list, he continued to the second step of the protocol.

A silencing field was erupted around them. He silently waited for one of the two people to provide the password.

The woman who was most likely called Poppy Pomfrey told him "Marshmallow".

As the headmaster still hadn't changed the password, it was correct, the gargoyle stepped aside allowing the two bodies and four souls access to the headmaster's office.

The woman let the boy walk up the staircase. She however returned from wherever she came from.

This ignorance of the protocol really irritated Quinn. Now he would have to remain open for five minutes before stepping back to allow anyone that said the correct password "ample time" to enter the office. That is unless someone else approaches him of course, at which point the protocol would revert to the first step in the process.

 **-= Harry Potter =-**

After the best and biggest breakfast Harry ever had, harry found himself to be escorted to the headmasters office. In primary school, harry met the headmaster a couple of times. The most memorable was after the time he climbed on the school roof to escape from the bullies. He had detention for weeks and the punishment back home when his family heard of the situation wasn't any better.

He hoped that the headmaster of this school would be a bit nicer.

Madame Pomfrey brought them to a gargoyle. The statue asked for a password, which the nurse answered as marshmallows.

Harry wondered for a moment what kind of headmaster would have marshmallows as password. In his mind he saw the headmaster of his primary school sitting beside a camp-fire roasting marshmallows.

Behind the gargoyle a staircase appeared. Harry walked up the stairs, the gargoyle remaining open behind him, and reached to knock on the door at the top of the stairs.

"Come in, Harry"

Surprised by the premature response, he opened the door and walked in the strange office not knowing in what direction he should look.

A bird, red as fire, sat in a corner eating some beef. It looked for a moment up at Harry and seemed to give a small bow as a greeting before continuing his meal.

At one wall, there were paintings of many people, all looking to be at least a hundred years old with beards of various length and shapes. Some of them seemed to look at him. Harry once heard about a trick to make paintings seem to look at you. However, he had the feeling this was more.

He was sure of it when he noticed one of the paintings moving and another waving at him.

There were strange devices in another corner. Some devices had mirrors, other emitting smoke in strange colours. One of them looked very much like a map of England only each time he blinked the markers seemed to move around on the map. Each device looked immensely strange and from no device he could start to guess it's purpose.

He saw an old man with a white beard at his desk. He guessed this might be the headmaster. "Lemon Drop?" the man asked, offering a small bowl with small yellow candies to him.

"No, thank you." Harry politely refused before the meeting began.

"Harry" the headmaster started, while quickly taking one of the candies from the bowl before setting it down next to some sort of pyramid shaped oddity. "The events last evening are still clouded in mysteries. I hope you want to help me understand what happened."

"Sure, but I do not understand everything either" Harry answered unsure. After all, he didn't know who the two were or what magic was cast.

"Can you provide me with a summary of the events as far as you know them?" Dumbledore requested in a kind grandfatherly voice.

Harry thought he could do this and started to describe the events from the last evening. He started how he saw two people in the garden, how he greeted them and was answered with a salvo of green spells.

He told how he sneaked into the attic and had hidden himself in a cloth basket. How he hoped they wouldn't find him and finally the confrontation with the two wizards.

The headmaster seemed quite content with Harry's information. Sometimes he was interrupted, to ask for clarifications, but it never felt rudely. When he was done explaining the whole situation, the headmaster asked some bigger questions.

"Have you ever seen similar or unusual people near your house before?" he asked leaning a bit forward.

Shrugging his shoulders, Harry told him, he had no idea.

"In the attack on your house, did you worry about your family" the old man asked.

"Not really" Harry admitted "I never considered them to be family. They never treated me like one either. Probably one of the only things we agree about." he answered while visions of the chores, the cupboard and even beatings went through his head.

 **-= Harry Potter, 23 August 1991 =-**

The week that followed was the most interesting week harry ever had. It was both good and bad for Harry.

The castle itself was wonderful. There were all kinds of strange passages, moving staircases and even animated portraits. He became lost a couple of times but seemed to know the castle better after a few days.

He ate breakfast and dinner in the great hall. When harry admired the room, he wasn't sure why it was called a hall as it clearly had no ceiling.

Luckily it was sunny as this 'hall' sure would be a disaster when it rained, giving no protection to any student inside during the very common British rain.

Candles floated lazily in the air, being seemingly unaware of the fact that they were defying multiple laws of physics. One would expect that the tables would be dirty from dripping suet but he didn't see any traces of it. Could this also be the solution for the rain. They maybe could stop drops before they hit the floor. Another possibility was that the candles didn't drip. Maybe they would even burn indefinitely, ignoring laws of physics seemed to be something these candles were quite apt at after all.

Interesting as it was, he would not spend his time looking for answers to the various questions almost everything in the castle seem to bring up to him. He still had to prepare for classes.

After breakfast he often took a walk outside. There was the most beautiful lake he had ever seen. He sat a couple of times beside the lake, just admiring the view. He found a favourite location to read his books. At one point he could have sworn he saw the tentacles of a giant octopus.

 **-= Harry Potter, 2** **8** **August 1991 =-**

Harry looked at his uncle lying in the hospital bed, today was the day they would awake him from the magical sleep he has been under.

Aunt Petunia was escorted in the room by none other than Albus Dumbledore. Visibly annoyed at the fact that she was still in this "freakish" place. In the past few days, she seemed to pass no opportunity to subtly make clear this was all his fault. That is, any moment she thought she could get away with it, without any of the teachers noticing.

He was sure that he would pay dearly for the attack on the Dursley's when they finally got home. He didn't know whether it would be starvation, beatings or just locking him in his cupboard. Maybe a combination of the three. Whatever it would be, the one thing he knew that it would be bad.

Madame Pomfrey walked over to the unconscious body, and started to explain the situation:

"As you all know, Vernon Dursley is currently in a magical sleep to in an attempt to avoid a mental breakdown from the pain. However, the sleep made it until this point impossible to check whether he is mentally whole."

She continued "This morning I checked and I believe the pain levels have been decreased to such a level that he can be woken up. However he will still have significant pain. He has to take a pain-relieving potion three times a day and for this meeting I will give him a calming draught as well."

"CALMING DRAUGHT?" Petunia shouted in an angry voice. "ARE YOU DRUGGING MY HUSBAND? KEEP YOUR FREAKISH PRODUCTS AWAY FROM MY PRECIOUS VERNON"

"I am giving him medication." she told her in a professional sounding voice. "If he wouldn't take one, he may panic and accidentally hurt himself."

Clearly not looking happy she reluctantly agreed for the mediwitch to continue.

She poured the potions in his throat. The first was a neon-green pain-relief potion. The second bottle contained a muddy brown liquid-ish potion called the calming draught.

With a wave of her wand, the nurse woke the sleeping man.

Petunia looked at her husband as he opened his eyes.

"Where am I?" he asked.

The nurse was visibly relieved when seeing the man. By asking that question, she knew the man would end up okay.

 **-= Harry Potter, 29 August 1991 =-**

Enjoying the weather, Harry found himself outside the next day. He walked around the lake, still admiring the view. Looking around, he saw a large stadium of some sorts, it looked somewhat like a football stadium but the spectator stands were significantly higher and instead of goal posts there were a series of hoops on both sides, Harry wasn't sure how any sport could be played on such a field..

On the other hand, there was the forbidden forest. He had heard there were dangerous creatures in there. It seemed a bit weird to keep dangerous creatures so close to a school filled with children so he wasn't sure if he should believe it or if it was just a way to scare new students away from the forest. Just beside the woods was a small hut, Hagrid's house, or so he had heard.

Hagrid was probably his most preferred staff-member. He already met the man when he delivered the letter and he seemed kindly enough when he helped him shop for his school supplies.

As he came closes he noticed that the light was on and knocked on the door, a low growl came from somewhere next to house, he looked over and saw a quite large, three headed dog growling at him.

"Come in" a friendly voice said.

Not feeling like staying in range of the three headed dog any longer than need he quickly pushed the door open and hurried inside.

"Ah, Harry" the large man said "Shall I make you some tea?"

"What, what was that?" Harry managed to pronounce.

"What? Oh the dog outside, that is fluffy."

"Fluffy?" he asked knowing fully well that he would never call such a beast Fluffy. He didn't really see any sense in giving the name Fluffy to a beast that looks that dangerous.

"Yeah. Isn't he adorable?"

"Adorable?" Hagrid's assurances didn't help him at all to see the three-headed monster as adorable.

"I got him for Albus to help him protect the third floor corridor." Hagrid answered.

"You mean the forbidden third floor corridor?"

"Yes. I shouldn't have said that. But now that you know, could you help me getting him in the castle?"

Harry redundantly agreed. "I guess so, if it's safe."


	3. Y1: Black Mamba

_Because I got some reviews I have chosen to release this chapter earlier than I originally planned ass a present to my faithful readers. Afterwards I will try to follow a schedule of 1 chapter every two weeks._

 **-** **= Harry Potter, Early Evening, 1 September 1991 =-**

Harry waited together with the rest of his year-mates in a small chamber next to the great hall, around him people were discussing things from the latest racing brooms to how they would be sorted. Harry though trying to guess anything about the sorting was quite useless as they would find out how it was done in just a few minutes, and the talk about brooms went way over his head, he was amazed enough already that _any_ broom could fly. In general his year-mates seemed to have plenty of energy after sitting in the old steam-train for almost eight hours, he had found the day long trip quite boring and didn't understand why McGonagall had taken him to Kings Cross only to have him ride the train back to Hogwarts.

Fifteen minutes later the sorting was well under way, a bushy haired girl he had seen walking through the corridors on the train had ended up in Ravenclaw, a short, dark haired boy was put in in Gryffindor and a quite arrogant looking boy with almost white hair ended up in Slytherin

Currently a girl named Sally Anne Perks sat on the small stool with the old hat falling being a bit big for her and hiding her eyes from view. Unless there were any further year-mates who's last name started with a P he would be next and he started fidgeting just thinking about it. He had always been bad with being in front of an audience, at least since Dudley made a fool of him in grade school. But today, he expected, would be even worse than usual, He was a celebrity after all. He never asked for it, he would rather be just Harry, but he didn't think anyone would listen to his opinion on the matter.

In addition to the celebrity status he was nervous what the hat would say. The hat would after all determine much of his life for the next seven years, Would he be sent home? Was he a squib? If not, in what house would he be sorted? These kind of thoughts troubled his mind.

He thought he might be a squib and be send home. Still, if he wasn't a squib he would probably mess up due to the stress and end up in the wrong house.

When professor McGonagall called his name, the great hall fell silent for the first time since the first years had entered, every pair of eyes in the hall seemed to look at him. He hated it but how could it be different. He was Harry-goddamn-Potter after all.

The train ride earlier served as a rude reminder, a red headed boy gaped at him when he passed the on the corridor and had asked him if he remembered anything from when he got his scar. He had felt quite uncomfortable being asked about the day he lost his parents.

The silver haired boy that was sorted into Slytherin just moment ago was more interested in connections and being seen with "the right kind of people". He didn't really wanted to work on networking and politely said that he wanted to judge people himself.

Taking all his courage he walked to the hat thinking _~Not Slytherin, Not Slytherin, Not Slytherin …~_. After meeting the head of that house a few days earlier he didn't really want to spend any more time with him than strictly necessary.

For the rest, he didn't really care. Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor all seemed to be okay, Ravenclaw and especially Hufflepuff seemed a bit under represented in the books he read but he couldn't see anything wrong about them in the little he did read about them.

He was very surprised with the response of the hat. _~Hi Tom~_

Harry was flabbergasted. _~I am Harry, Not Tom~_ he quickly responded, trying to reduce the confusion.

 _~Nonsense, magic quite clearly tells me that your name is Tom, it's no use trying to fool me with a made up name boy~_ the hat said in an authoritative voice.

 _~I didn't make the name Harry up. Didn't you hear what_ _McGonagall_ _said?~_ Harry responded getting a bit frustrated.

 _~Anyway, back to the sorting.~_ the hat projected in his mind, ignoring his any complaints raised by Harry. _~Your Horcruxes show true ambition~_.

 _~Wait, what, Horcruxes?~_ harry asked even more frustrated. _~I have never heard of them. What are they?~_

 _~This means you are suited for~_ the hat concluded before Harry could finish his question "SLYTHERIN."

 **-** **= Severus Snape =-**

Severus Snape was listening intensely at the sorting. As Harry approached the hat, Severus started wondering where the boy would end up.

Probably a Gryffindor like his damn father, Albus wouldn't be able to shut up for weeks about it if the boy ended up in the "best house". That it should happen for the greater good. However, for him it would just mean that the boy was a spoiled brat, just like his father.

Ravenclaw was the other possibility he could think of. He has seen the boy studying his books on a number of occasions. He silently hoped the boy would go to that house. It made Harry a bit more like Lily in his opinion and he wouldn't be able to handle the weekly reminder of Lily in potions class. He tried not to think about how Lily was ever sorted in Gryffindor.

The hat interrupted his thoughts, shocking Snape in the process. SLYTHERIN? The prat was sorted in SLYTHERIN. He would be responsible for him. He did NOT like the idea of the eleven year old boy complaining to him about homesick or not being spoiled as much as he was at home. The potions professor was almost about to speak up in protest. He knew however, that protesting would not help him, Albus would never take any opinion from him serious, no matter how much the old man pretended to.

The arrogant boy didn't walk to the Slytherin table like he should. Instead the boy walked over to the teachers table.

He faced the headmaster and spoke to him. "Excuse me, Professor Dumbledore, but I believe that the hat malfunctions." he said. "I couldn't understand half of the things it said."

He had never heard about someone questioning the decision of the old hat or talking to the headmaster in this way but if someone would do it, Snape thought with disgust, it would be a Potter.

He had to hold himself from taking points from the brat. It would do bad to take points from his own house. His thoughts conflicted. At one side, he wanted to win the house cup. On the other side, he wanted to punish that arrogant son of his rival.

The headmaster paused for a few seconds before he answered in his grandfatherly voice "I nor anybody else can comprehend the judgement of the hat or the wise words it speaks. In the thousand years it has been sorting the young students it has never made a single mistake. I have full confidence wisdom of the hat, even if it's not always clear what it is, as great wisdom seldom is. Please join your fellow Slytherins."

As anger troubled his passive occlumency barriers, Snape remembered something that made him forget most of his anger, he was the boy's head of house, he had almost complete control over the punishments the boy received. He could finally get his revenge on that arrogant brat. He just had to make sure that he would do it without the headmaster noticing, that old man would never let anything bad happen to his golden boy. But Snape hadn't been the head of Slytherin for years without reason.

 **-** **= Harry Potter =-**

As the students finished dinner, the left-overs of the food disappeared. Harry silently wondered what the house elves would do with the large amount of food left by the students and where he should go now. At one side, he didn't really feel like he belonged in Slytherin. On the other side, he just had to make the best of it or they might decide to send him back home altogether.

He was wondering where he was supposed to be sleeping when he saw a girl wearing a badge with a P on her uniform calling "First years".

"Hi I am Gemma Farley and this is Marcus Flint", she said. "We are prefects and will escort you to the common room. Please follow us.". The male perfect nodded his head silently and didn't really look like really wanted to be here.

Harry did as he was told and followed the two prefects into the dungeons together with the rest of the first year Slytherins. In his previous explorations he hadn't really ventured in the lower parts of the castle much so he payed extra attention to the path they took in order not to get lost later..

At one point, Gemma Farley waited in front of an otherwise quite normal looking wall and pointed at the grey, slightly damp looking wall. "Here is the entrance." she said "The password is 'Black Mamba'."

When she said the name of the deadly snake, the stones started to move with a certain sense of elegance that stones shouldn't be able to have. Similar as the gateway towards Diagon Alley, this wall was changed in a door. The prefect pushed at the door revealing a small stairway. The stairs led up to a nicely looking common room of thirty feet wide and fifty feet deep.

The complete room was themed in the colours green, silver and black. The walls were decorated with various portraits, other paintings and torches all of them decorated in various way with images or sculptures of snakes who looked quite content sitting there. There were windows with water behind the glass. You could see some fish swimming and he tough he could see something bigger moving in the back for a bit. Even the ceiling was partially made of glass and it gave the room a quite magnificent look, everything about the room seemed to made in such a way, to give a sense of superiority to the people who spent their days in the chamber.

On the left was a huge fireplace with a couple of couches in front of it. A few older years were already hanging on the couch, discussing the various activities they did in the summer or their plans for their last school years and the time beyond.

Behind the couches was a large round table with antique chairs inlaid with silver, the two large bookcases to each side of the window next to the table filled with a combination books, from the newer books, probably spare copies of the various school text, to the few thick old tomes, some of them looking like they would fall apart if you even did so much as breathing on them.

Looking through a large hallway on his right he saw a second room who looked a bit similar to the first. Even though the room was a bit smaller, the windows were bigger.

"Welcome in the house of Slytherin." Marcus Flint said, a slight discontent at the eleven year old students was barely noticeable in his voice. "This is where you will be staying for the next seven years."

"First let me explain the house rules."

 **1\. Your house is family. Family stands together.**

"We show a united front against the other houses. If we show a weakness, they will try to exploit it."

"What about friends in other houses?" Harry asked while thinking about neville. He had met him on the train and they became more or less friends with each other.

"You are at least expected to make friends in your own house." The older boy responded, visibly annoyed at the interruption. "In addition, you cannot tell people from other houses our house-secrets."

 **2\. The common room doesn't belong to you.**

"I think this rule is pretty clear. Keep it clean after you finished. Don't leave a mess."

 **3\. Show proper respect to superiors.**

"Although this rule was originally written to be respecting teachers and prefects, you will soon notice that it also holds to respecting older students and other people from higher standings"

A small dark-brown haired girl somewhere in the back of the group, Tracy something, picked that moment to start pracise the finer arts of sinking through the floor, although she didn't seem to be very successful at it and some of his year mates seemed to look at her in contempt. Harry silently wondered what was wrong at the girl.

 **4\. Arguments with another Slytherin are only permitted in the Slytherin house.**

"You will not give people excuses to take points from us by doing these discussions elsewhere. See rule number 1."

Harry could see the point of this rule but didn't really like it.

 **5\. Study time is mandatory and QUIET.**

"Failing grades is not something that will be accepted during your time in Slytherin. To ensure you spent a sufficient amount of work on keeping up with your studies regular study hours have been scheduled for everyone up to third year. And _all_ of you will attend these hours to make sure your homework is done to a sufficient standard. Schedules are made available by Professor Snape and higher years will be around during these study hours to help people who have problems understanding the material."

"What if we finished our homework?" one of the students asked.

"If you are finished with your homework", Flint replied, his irritation at the second interruption audible in his voice. "You are still required to be quiet. Other students may still be busy. Reading proper books or writing letters is acceptable in these cases. In addition, prefects may ask you whether you are indeed finished."

 **6\. Keep your dorm clean at all times.**

"Dorm inspections are not scheduled. they usually take place once a month."

 **7\. The Hogwarts elves are not your servants.**

"They have their own work to do and cannot be bothered with student request."

"But …" Draco Malfoy started.

"I know that some of you are used to be served by your house elf." He interrupted, "In that case, you can always ask your own elves for services if needed."

 **8\. Be in bed at bedtime.**

"Your bedtimes are chosen for a reason. For first years, this is 9 PM. Even if you have an exam the next morning, you will go to bed at the indicated time. And any late night adventuring will not be tolerated."

 **-** **= Albus Dumbledore, Late Evening, 1 September 1991 =-**

Albus Dumbledore sat in his office slowly sipping on fresh cup of tea finally being able to relax a bit after the always hectic arrival of the new students. After looking around the office for a bit, letting his thoughts wander. The faint, pink, pulsating light from an empty picture frame in the corner of his office told him that all the new first years had made it to their bed on time.

This thought brought him back to the issue that arrived only a few hours ago, the sorting was going so well, when the old hat had decided to sort his golden boy with the snakes. He had been so sure that the boy would have been a sure entry into the house of lions and the only response the hat would give to any question about the unusual sorting were the regular arrogant remarks about how he "might understand when he was older"

Having the boy sorted into Slytherin was not something Albus could use at the moment, he showed enough similarities with Voldemort as is without ending up in the same house. If the boy ended up going dark it would be a great setback to his plans.

It might have been partially his own fault to, as little as he wanted to acknowledge that, placing him in the care of his aunt and uncle seemed like an obvious solution ten years ago. Blood related, out of the way of any stardom the boy would have and a cousin of the same age to boot. The placement of the boy should have gone without any problem, producing a nice, well mannered, if somewhat clueless about the magical world, eleven year old boy.

Instead he had an underfed, unloved and, according to Poppy's reports, probably abused to, eleven year old boy. Still well mannered though.

He saw the boy feared his guardians. Which was definitely a bad thing. Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to anger. If dominated by this anger, the boy could fall victim to the temptations of dark magics. Was that what the prophecy meant with the line:

 _~Marked as the dark lords equal.~_

It was certainly true that the boy was sent to the same house as Voldemort. He certainly not pleased about it.

He even briefly considered allowing the boys request and letting him change houses, he could have the boy nicely in McGonagall's care and all his plans would be back on track. However, that was not easy. The hogwarts rules clearly stated that the hat was the final and only authority of where the boy would be. If he would ignore those rules, it would cause a scandal. Lucius had a lot of control on the board of governors and wouldn't hesitate to use such a thing as an excuse to kick the headmaster from his position. There were too much Slytherins who wanted the house to improve in status, and the Boy-Who-Lived provided a golden opportunity for them to show the good side of their house.

No, he had to silently observe and guide the boy. Hopefully this would be enough to make sure he would not fall for the dark side.

He thought about several potential plans about getting back control over his boy, ignoring the high pitched buzz, coming from a shelf behind him, which marked moonrise in southern Finland

A plan formed in his mind to control the boy. Being Harry's magical guardian he could make binding magical contracts. And the right sort of contract might just be what is needed to bring the boy back to the light.

 **-** **= Harry Potter, Early Morning, 10 September 1991 =-**

Wednesday in the second week of the term, Harry woke early with a scream, like he did a couple of times before. Frustrated, Draco kicked him out of the dormitories.

Not that he really blamed them. After all, he had just woken them for the fourth time, since the term has started. His nightmare of the incident where two death eaters attacking his house, became frustrating. He knew out of experience that he would not be able to fall back in a quiet sleep anyway. Staying in the dormitories would only frustrate the rest.

He climbed out of bed and took a short shower. After he felt clean again, he dressed himself. While putting on his robes, he still felt a little strange about the wizarding fashion. It would take some time to get used to it.

Hi picked up his textbooks and silently walked out of his room. It wouldn't do any good waking any of the snoring boys.

While he made his way to the great hall, he looked at all four tables. Not a lot of students were sitting at the tables. This wasn't strange as it was way before breakfast time.

At the Ravenclaw table two older students were comparing notes. Sometimes he heard a fragment of their discussions "… worse than our OWLs …".

At the Slytherin table, he saw a small girl with dark brown hair. She was a first year, just like him. He thought she was called Tracy or something like that. Almost everybody seemed to ignore her. Not that they said such a thing out loud but the whispers and pointed fingers made the message quite clear.

Somehow, she didn't seem to fit in the Slytherin house. Not that he fit in particularly well either.

Whatever was wrong, he didn't think she had done anything to deserve this.

He walked up to the girl and sat beside him.

"Hi. I'm Harry. You're Tracy?"

"Yes."

"I have noticed that most students seem to avoid you. Are you okay?"

"I am fine."

"You don't sound like you're fine." the boy said "In the common room you almost sank through the floor. So there is a problem and the faster it is fixed the better it is."

"There is no fixing. I am a half-blood."

"What is a half blood?"

"You don't know?"

"No"

"A half blood means that one of your parents is a Muggle. In my case, my mother. You do know what a Muggle is?"

"Yeah, I am raised by Muggles. Until recently I didn't know that wizards existed."

She was gaping at him?

"Why does it matter?"

"Being a Half-blood my status will be quite low, especially by pure-blood families like the Malfoys. By telling you are muggle raised, your status would drop immensely. If we add the fact that you have been unable to cast any spell, your status may be even lower than mine. Purebloods aren't kind to those who they think as a failure."

"Pureblood?" Harry almost choked remembering the word form Aunt Marge.

"My aunt sometimes uses the term when she talks about her bulldogs. A dog is called pureblood when it is of an unpolluted breed. For example bulldogs, labradors, shepherds, etc. Do you mean the same thing?"

Tracy was almost choked on a piece of sausage she had just put into her mouth and looked at him speechless. When she finally found her breath she said angrily but in a low voice: "Do you want to get us both killed? Comparing purebloods with dogs?"

"What are purebloods then?"

"Well, …" She sighted "they are wizards without a muggle in the last four generations. They have a lot of political power and you should not try to alienate them."

"Oh" harry said, seeing the similarities in the definitions but being wise enough not to speak up about it.

"Tracy?" he asked "Can you help me with understanding the wizarding culture? I know very little about it."

"Sure, but I guess you first need to work on your spellcasting."

 **-** **= Harry Potter,** **21** **September 1991 =-**

Harry had been in the library, studying and was just heading to the great hall. It was not the way most students would spend their sunday's.

Unfortunately, Harry had some difficulties with most of subjects were he was required to use his wand. He didn't seem to have a lot of magic. In fact, he hadn't been able to successfully cast any spell for the last three weeks.

Most of the other Slytherins found him somewhat a kind of disappointment. In the first week, many other students seemed to want to form alliances with his house. However, this stopped after the first week. Since he had been unable to cast any spell, they started him to call him the squib. Thinking about it, he had to ask Tracy what a squib was, when he had time.

In addition, he had problems with the potions teacher. Professor Snape seemed to pick on him for no reason. As the dark-haired professor was also his head of house, he tried to be extra careful for that lesson. He would probably end up doing more preparations and homework for potions lessons than anybody else.

Both problems formed a significant cuts in the amount of free time he had, he had planned to visit Hagrid that day but had spent all of his time in the library instead.

He even had to cut back his talks with Tracy. There just wasn't enough time to study and to try to understand the wizarding world. He hoped this wouldn't bite him in the back later on. After all, most of his house-mates expected that he knew the ins and outs of the world he now lived in.

A pair of voices broke him from his thoughts

"Hi Harry, I'm Fred …"

"… and I'm George."

"We were interested in your story with the hat."

"After all, we need to know if we have competition."

"Competition?" Harry asked "I am behind with my studying, so I don't need a competition."

The two redheads took a chair, completely ignoring the fact that he was busy, and started to introduce themselves.

"I am Fred …"

"… and I am George …"

"… and we are the biggest pranksters …"

"… since the marauders."

"If anyone pranked the hat …"

"… we could lose our reputation."

"Especially since we found out last year …"

"… that one-spell-glue doesn't seem to hold …"

"… on the inside of the dusty hat."

"So tell us what you did to the hat?" they begged.

Harry began to talk how the hat had called him Tom. "The hat claimed the name I used was made up" he told them "To be honest, I don't understand it. Like I told the teachers, the hat seemed to be barking mad."

"Maybe the hat was pranking you?" Fred suggested

"That seems to be possible. After that it talked about something called horcruxes. Do you know what they are?"

"No …" Fred continued.

"… but we will search for it." his twin-brother completed with a grin on his face. "If there is any book in the castle about it, we will find it."

 **Author Notes:**

 **JuliSt: Thanks for raising a few points, I hadn't thought about a lot. I am sorry that Harry and Hermione did not meet in this chapter but the next chapter will tell you why. I didn't expect people to instantly recognise Harry's wand. Kudos for that.**

 **Anmarie and two guests: Thanks for pointing out the Dudley and Dursley confusion.**

 **I based the house rules of Slytherin on the work of etherian. It can be found in a 'story' called 'Slytherin House Main Rules & Motto'. I didn't copy them one to one but it is a main inspiration source.**


	4. Y1: Interlude: Hermione Granger

_Last chapters: Harry was attacked by two death eaters in the summer. At the sorting, the hat misinterpreted Harry as Tom Riddle. Despite his complaint, Harry was sorted in Slytherin. Harry does not have a lot of magic which requires him to study more._

 **-=Hermione Granger, Morning 2 September 1991=-**

Emma Granger stepped out of her car and opened the door for her daughter who looked much like how Emma looked at her age.

"We're there." She said with a smile.

Hermione quickly exited the car and took a moment to get a proper look at her school, holding a smile on her face, just like her mother. As both had a The large, stone building dropped a shadow over the larger part of the street it sat on. Large golden letters on the front spelled the name of the school. "Smelting Academy"

Her mum gave her a short kiss and said "Be a good girl." obviously referring last year.

In her previous year, she was intimidated by the huge grey building and really didn't want to go. Somehow she had feared leaving her parents side, and the imposing statue of the old boarding school didn't help the, then, soon to be eleven year old, to get over her fears.

Her mother had told her that there were many moments in life when going forward would be difficult, taking a leap forward without knowing what would be ahead. But that at such a time it was important to remember that with any change in life, there was always some way to make things work in your favour. At the end she asked her to be a good girl and informed her that if she ever felt the need, she could call home.

Although she didn't really believe it at the time, it turned out to be a great school. At first she had called her mum every evening, but in just a few weeks she stopped. She had used the change to a new school, to make a couple of good friends. With the friends, she enjoyed her time at the school immensely. She didn't even realise that she hadn't called home from October till Christmas. Of course, her parents would call sometimes to know if it went allright, but she honestly didn't think of calling them.

She kissed her mother goodbye with a short kiss. Ignoring the fact that she wouldn't see her till Christmas and walked to the school yard.

it was a large square with paving stones. On the sides were plants and trees. This gave shade where benches were under the trees.

A wide staircase led five steps to the main entrance door. There were also three other buildings. The dormitory for the girls, the dormitory for the boys and the gymnasium where PE was given.

She let her eyes move over the school yard full of people. After some moments, she spotted two girls chatting. Enthusiastically she walked towards her friends.

"Hi Angie." she said to the black-haired girl with a large smile on her face. Her straight hair reached as far as the middle of her neck. By looking a bit down, a shadow fell over her face. It wasn't as if she was unhappy, but her head often faced downwards.

She turned towards the blond girl whose long straight hair reached as far as the middle of her back. She showed her enthusiasm much more to the world. Her pose showed her confidence. "Hi Charlotte."

"Hello Hermione" Charlotte replied "Your skin looks a bit more tanned."

"We went a week to a beach in France. It was a camping with not much to do so I spend a lot of time in the water." she answered before continuing. "It is a lovely country. After that week, we spend the last weekend in Paris."

"Did you go up the Eiffel Tower?"

"No, I am afraid of heights. Dad said that you could see over the whole city but mum and me liked to stay on the ground."

"I can imagine." Charlotte said. "I have an uncle who also has fear of heights. In our shopping center, there is an escalator. Whenever we go there, he feels uncomfortable."

"My fear of height isn't that bad, but when you have an open building like the Eiffel tower, I just stay away. Mum and me spend some time in the adjacent parks instead. Later that day, we visited some shops and we ate dinner with a view over the Siere."

"Sounds lovely." Charlotte said with a smile on her face.

"It is" Hermione answered "Still, our parents always take the same spots. I would like to see some other parts of France as well."

Charlotte responded. "We went to Ireland, to a small village, Carrickfield. It is in the middle of nowhere. There are a dozen houses. Most of them are or were farms."

"That must have been quiet" Hermione observed. "At least in our spot we had tourists"

"Absolutely. It was quite calm compared to what I am used at, but I didn't mind. The nature was nice and there was such a lovely lake where Dave and I went swimming."

"Sounds nice."

Hermione noticed that Angie hadn't spoken yet and asked. "Angie, did you go to Prague, as planned?"

"Yeah, it was nice."

Hermione immediately recognised Angie's habits. She was a friendly but a bit quiet, always sitting in the background. As a result, she didn't have a lot of friends. According to her, she didn't mind, but Hermione wasn't really sure.

She had chosen to try to get to know Angie better and hope she would become more open. This often meant that she had to ask for more information.

"Tell us more"

"It's an old city near a river. We had a small hotel and we enjoyed it quite a lot."

"What was the most beautiful thing?"

"There were many old buildings and bridges. The castle was quite big. It is build on a mountain, giving a view over the whole city."

They talked a few more minutes about their vacation until a bell alerted them that they had to go inside to their classes.

 **-=Dudley Dursley, Morning 6 September 1991=-**

Dudley Dursley looked back on his first few days in Smeltings. The building was cool and he felt very proud to go to the same school as where his dad went. According to Vernon, all people that meant something went to schools like this.

His walking stick had an extra function. He could hit other children with it. Although he hadn't used it for such yet, he would surely do so in the near future. Too bad his cousin wasn't here as that freak was always a fun victim.

Unfortunately, he didn't have much time for fun. He was already behind with homework, although he felt that wasn't really his fault, doing homework was the one thing he hated the most so the teachers shouldn't be giving him this much of it.

Because the teachers couldn't seem to understand that he didn't want to work, he had two subjects that were due to be handed in tomorrow.

He needed to hand in homework for English and Mathematics.

English class was boring. Although he could complete it if wanted to, he felt it was completely useless. Who cared about the difference between vowels, nouns and verbs, english was english, why did he have to spend 3 hours a week learning stupid stuff about a language he was already able to speak.

Mathematics was more difficult. They were busy with fractions and he really didn't understand it. The diagrams of cakes may have been drawn to help him but it didn't work. It only made him hungry.

Usually, this wouldn't have been a problem as he had a cousin who did his homework. This freak of a cousin knew that if he didn't do his homework, he would beat him. He made sure that the skinny freak would know the penalty.

However, Harry went to a different school now. Couldn't his parents understand, he needed him for his homework. He was good for nothing else. It was a pity as he couldn't let the freak do his homework now.

Dudley realized he had to find a new victim. The person needed to be smart and shy. Smart was needed to make the homework without too many errors. The shyness was needed as shy people wouldn't ask help of a teacher.

He thought a moment about it and found the perfect victim. In second year, there was a black-haired girl who was quite smart but didn't have a lot of friends.

Now he had the victim, he needed a plan to train her. It would not do to train her like he trained his cousin. It would take too long. Still, the general method would work.

He would first make sure that she knew what he was capable of. Then, when she was broken, he would offer her a way out. By making his homework.

 **-=Hermione Granger, Morning** **9** **September 1991=-**

Hermione arrived at Chemistry class a few minutes early. It was the first class of the day but she never really had problems getting up.

The subject was something she enjoyed. It was a new class, given to second years and higher. Since they moved away from the safety regulations and started doing actual experiments, the lessons were becoming much more interesting. She was curious about the lesson today and what kind of practical the teacher would give them. Monday was always theory and Thursday was practice.

Although the door was locked, she didn't need to wait very long. She saw the teacher walking through the hall. The teacher John Bowman was a tall man with grey hair. He always wore a lab coat and special safety glasses. In the middle of the head a bald spot had started to form.

"Good morning John." she said to the teacher

"Excuse me if I make a mistake but your name was Hermione Granger?"

"You are correct."

"Good. I have four new classes and it can be sometimes difficult remembering all names in the first weeks. However, your uncommon name stuck out. Are you, by any chance, named after Greek mythology?"

"No, my mum loves the books of Shakespeare. That's where she found the name." She answered her chemistry professor that she quickly followed with a question. "But where does it mention my name in the mythology?"

"Well, in the time of the Troy war, the daughter of king of Sparta was called Hermione. She was betrothed to two husbands. By her father, the king, and by her grandfather."

"Disgusting practice, being married without having a choice." Hermione commented with disgust. She couldn't imagine what that would be like.

"I completely agree." The teacher said. "Luckily these things don't happen in England any more, so you will never need to worry about that."

"Yeah, thanks a lot for that." Hermione commented.

The teacher opened the doors with a key he pulled from his lab coat. She entered the classroom. The classroom looked a bit like a lab. The room was white and clean. The tables and chairs here were slightly higher than at other classrooms. This meat you could either comfortably sit or stand on the tables.

Every table had access to water which could be used for experiments and emergencies.

In the corner were two fume hoods, which she didn't use yet. After all, second year students didn't get to do experiments with dangerous fumes in their first few lessons.

Near the fume hoods was one of the two emergency exists. It was clear that the designers of this room had a great deal of thought about safety. And their teacher John made sure they knew what safety measures existed.

Hermione chose a seat near one of the big windows. Soon other students came in and chose their own seats. Although their teacher didn't have strict rules on seating positions, which was one of the few things he didn't have rules about, most students usually sat at the same positions. Both Charlotte and Angie chose to sit near her.

Strictly at a quarter to nine, the teacher locked the door and started the class. Any student who was late would not be allowed to attend. He was a strict teacher. Everyone had to be quiet and listen to him when he was giving instructions. If you didn't follow the safety instructions you were kicked out. You had to report at the principal office. No warnings what-so-ever.

From Charlotte she heard Dave was once kicked two minutes before the end of the lesson. No other teacher would do that.

On the other hand, he believed in showing interesting things. In the first lesson he mixed two liquids that looked like water. When he mixed them red clouds appeared in the vial. He explained that the liquids, although they looked like water did in fact have chemicals in them that reacted. From there he explained why safety was important.

Today they would do their first experiment. In groups of two or three, they would heat up seawater to look at the dissolved substances.

Although this experiment was not really dangerous, she thought the teachers strictness was a good thing. In later years she would encounter much more dangerous substances.

She had teamed up with Charlotte and Angie to work on the same experiment.

Now standing behind their tables, they started to work. It was nice how the tables were higher, such that you could stand comfortably behind them.

Judging from a few minor mistakes Angie made while collecting the materials, she had the feeling her mind was not focused on the experiment. This was confirmed by the absence of smiles. Her usually cheerful attitude was replaced with a negative aura. Was the black-haired girl not doing well emotionally?

While heating the water she asked "Is anything wrong?"

"No."

"I can see you're not your usual self." the blond-haired Charlotte observed as well.

Hermione made a guess and asked with confidence that she guessed right, "I heard a boy calling you names. Is that it?"

She was a moment silent before the black-haired girl continued in a low voice "Yes".

Hermione responded. "Don't listen to that boy if he makes you unhappy. Don't let him ruin your day. He is not worth it."  
Charlotte said "You are worth ten Dudley's."

Hermione faced the blond-haired girl and mimicked an angry voice "Don't insult Angie. We both know that Dudley is worth nothing. By telling her that she is worth ten Dudley's, you say she is worth nothing as well. Ten times zero is still zero."

Although Charlotte wanted to protest, the effect was what she hoped to be. Angie started to laugh about the joke. When her giggles were finished she was able to say "Thanks".

With that, they continued to work and evaporated the water revealing only salt.

When all the students were finished with the experiment, he told his class how some chemicals were in water that you could not see because they were dissoluted. Some dissolutions are invisible and others have a colour. In a lab, you cannot assume that if something looks like water that it is water.

He also briefly explained that salt was called Natrium-Chloride. He explained how it consists of the two chemicals Natrium and Chloride. He told how both chemicals are dangerous but they neutralize each other. This description amazed Hermione how a very simple material can consist of two dangerous chemicals.

 **-=Hermione Granger, Afternoon 19 September 1991=-**

It was 19 September and Hermione was disappointed in her friends. It was her birthday and none of her friends seemed to have remembered it. She didn't even see them during break time. Letting her spend all the time by herself.

This had started yesterday when Angie and Charlotte went studying. When Hermione wanted to join, they had refused. For Hermione, this felt like they had a fall-out.

Studying was her thing and being refused in a study club hurt more than she was willing to admit.

It felt too much like last year. At this day, last year, she didn't really have real friends yet. Sure, she was already starting to become friendly with some students, but the real friendship didn't happen. Because of that, nobody celebrated it, until she mentioned it. It had hurt a lot, emotionally. But this year she had hoped that since she had friends now, they would celebrate it with her.

Disappointed with her friends, she walked up to her room after classes. Hermione pushed the door to her room open.

When the door opened she was startled by the cheerful voice of her friends. "Surprise" was yelled in a happy tone.

Indeed she was surprised. The simple bedroom she shared with Charlotte, was changed a lot. It wasn't that something was missing. The two beds were still at the same spot and so where the drawers. It was more what was added.

A garland with the text "Happy Birthday" hung on the ceiling. Balloons in many colours were taped to the walls, the drawers, the bed and basically any place they could be taped on.

The air was filled with the smell from the chocolate cake at the centre of the room. The cake itself looked home-made and it reminded her of the cakes her mother used to bake for her birthday.

But the most important thing were the people standing around the cake. Angie, Charlotte and her brother Dave stood there, congratulating her with her birthday.

They secretly prepared a party for her. Yes! They still celebrated a party. She was flabbergasted.

Happy again, she felt a smile appear on her face. "I am so glad. I thought you forgot about it, but you didn't."

"How could we forget your birthday?" Charlotte asked rhetorically.

"Happy Birthday, Hermione" Dave said with a smile as well.

"And, how does it feel to be twelve?" Angie said jokingly. It wasn't as if people felt like a different person after a birthday.

"Not really different." Hermione answered honestly. "I just wanted to catch up." Since she skipped 6th grade, she was the youngest students in class. Almost all her classmates were twelve.

"Anyway, thanks for arranging this party."

"You're welcome" Dave answered. "But I think it is cake time."

The focus of all four children shifted to the cake with twelve candles. She wanted to blow the candles out but Charlotte stopped her.

"You did think of a wish?"

"Eh, no."

She started thinking about one. She had the feeling that there was something important to wish for. It was very important but she couldn't remember it.

The others were waiting in anticipation.

What should she wish for? She really didn't know. It came back to the important wish she couldn't remember. Looking at the faces of the other people, she decided that she really needed to formulate a wish.

 _~I wish, the wish that I don't remember, comes true.~_

It was a tricky wish, but it was the best she could do. She took a deep breath and blew out all twelve candles.

With the candles blown out, the cake was cut in four pieces. Everyone took one piece on a small plate. Hermione looked for a place to sit and in the absence of chairs, she sat on her bed. Angie sat beside her.

The other two sat on Charlotte's bed.

"This tastes lovely", she commented.

"Well, we called your mum to ask what kind of cake you like. She send the recipe and the three of us baked it together."

She went over her mind, when did they bake it? When did they have time? At first, they had lessons. Then there was a study period. After dinner, she and Charlotte were in the room. The only moment they didn't really see each other was the study period.

"I guess you baked it yesterday in the 'study' session?"

"You're right."

"Well, to give you some advice. Next year don't call it studying. I was so fed up that you didn't want to study with me."

Charlotte started to giggle. When she could talk again, she said "Well, I think we should have thought about that. Most students wouldn't mind to be told to take some free time in a free period, but then again, study is almost a hobby of you."

Hermione said "It isn't."

"Okay, it isn't ALMOST a hobby of you. It is MOST DEFINITELY a hobby of you."

Charlotte started giggling again. At this time, Hermione couldn't help to giggle as well.

After the cake was finished and the plates were licked clean, which took longer than expected due to giggling, it was time for presents.

Angie gave her a small present. Due to the size, and how it felt, she guessed it was some kind of book. When she opened it, she read "Alice through the looking glass" for which she was happy. She read the first book in the school library, but it didn't have the second one. She thanked Angie.

Charlotte gave a small present. Even with the wrapping, it was clear that this was not a book. It was much smaller. When she opened the wrapping, she saw some blinking metal and a fine chain. Looking further, it was revealed that it was a simple necklace. Although she would never buy a necklace herself, it did look good, though when she put it on.

Dave's surprise was a bit stranger. It was a cubic thing with that was slightly larger than two by two by two inches. No clue what it was, she opened it. It was a Rubix cube. She would not have considered buying it herself. Sometimes Dave was a bit of a geek.

They chatted for another hour, till Dave said they had to go to their dormitories as it was almost curfew.

She started to prepare for bed as well.

That evening, when she lay in bed, she reflected back onto the day. It was a great birthday and so much fun. She really had good friends here. She was really glad her parents had allowed her to go to Smeltings and that she had made such a great friends here.

She couldn't really fall asleep. She was so curious what she had wished for.

 **-=Angie Harden, Morning 1 October 1991=-**

It was the sixth week of school and Angie was sure of it. It was happening again. In primary school she had been abused and bullies had found her weakness again.

Last year she was afraid she would be bullied like in primary school. However, due to an amazing strike of luck, it didn't happen. Hermione had become friends with her and somehow this helped her.

Later that year, she became a friend of Hermione's room-mate as well. Charlotte was a nice girl and they got along quite well.

This year, they were in the same class again. However, a boy from a lower class was calling her names. It reminded her of primary school. She was being bullied, again. Emotions and past memories floated her mind the last couple of days. It really went downhill for her.

She just picked up a meal for her and Hermione. With her hands full of food, she walked outside. Looked around to find the spot Hermione had decided on. However, between here and her friend was that awful boy.

She thought his name was Dudley, Dudley Dursley. He and his friends were the ones picking on her. He had seemed to notice her as well and started approaching her. She knew what time it was. They increased her pace hoping to get out of here.

When he was close, she felt something near her leg and before she knew it she lost balance. The floor came forward at a fast speed. She wanted to put her hands to protect her face from the fall, but her hands were full with food. Things happened too fast to register what exactly happened but she registered that she was lying on the floor. Her face was a few centimetres above the pavement. Her hands had caught her just in time to avoid the worst pain. Still, her knee screamed in pain but she ignored it.

Looking better around, she saw all the food that was all over the ground. The milk she carried was in her clothing.

"I'm sorry" he said in such a smug voice, she was sure he wasn't sorry. The boy gave her a hand but she ignored it. There was no use giving him another opportunity to be awful. She stood up herself while the boy kept mocking her.

"What a pity. All that food." he said in the same smug voice.

"You tripped me, ass-hole" She bit back.

Completely ignoring the accusation the boy said in a voice that feigned innocence "I tried to help you up and now you accuse me of tripping you."

"Leave me alone."

"Ah, don't you like my attention." he said in an intimidating voice. His boot crushed some food. "Now, I don't like homework. Maybe we can make some kind of … deal."

At that moment, she knew that she would not leave without making some kind of agreement. She hoped that by helping him with his homework, the bullying would stop. Then it would be worth spending an hour every day.

She didn't know how wrong she would be.

 **Author Notes**

 **For those that are hoping for a transfer, I plan to let Hermione complete her education at Smeltings. That said, she will learn magic and meet Harry.**

 **For those who believed Hermione to be in** **R** **avenclaw, she isn't. I only said that a bushy haired girl ended up in Ravenclaw. Such a hair is certainly not a unique trait to Hermione and not all** **R** **avenclaws are described in canon.**


	5. Y1: Unbound Dreams

_Last Chapters: Harry does not seem to have any magic and Hermione is currently at Smelting Academy. Angie is abused by Dudley but Hermione is trying to help her. Harry is sorted in Slytherin by a Hat that called him Tom Riddle._

 **-= Harry Potter, 11 October 1991, afternoon =-**

"Class dismissed." The small professor announced at the end of his lesson. While he stepped from his box, professor Flitwick looked through the whole classroom.

"Keep practicing your spell-casting." He said to the group students in general.

Harry was a bit annoyed about this statement. It was yet another lesson in which Harry had been unable to cast the spell. Despite that fact that most of his peers had been able to get it working by the end, he didn't seem to get it right. In fact, he hadn't been able to cast any spell at all, in any of his classes.

The students started packing, happy that the class was finished. Harry had mixed feelings. At one part he was glad that he could take a break from saying incantations and hoping, beyond hope that something would happen. A bigger part of him was disappointed that he again couldn't cast a spell.

This wasn't a new feeling. After more than a month of failures, he was getting used to it. It didn't help him and he did not know what to do. He didn't dare raising the subject with the teachers, afraid he would be send home. Therefore he just sat in the back of the class, hoping beyond hope that he could find something to get his magic tick before the teachers would notice.

Not that, that was the only thing he did. He spend every moment of free time either practicing magic or reading books, trying to find out what was going on.

He put his books and quill in his bag and walked to the door to leave. Hopefully he would find something useful in the library today.

"Mr. Potter, stay behind" the teacher said "I would like to speak with you."

 _~Oh, no~_ Harry thought. _~This is because I hadn't been able to cast any spell. Would they send me home, after all that time?~_

The giggling of some of his fellow students, didn't ease his mind at all.

"My young pupils. I want to speak with mr Potter in private." The small professor told his classmates.

When the students had redundantly left the room, the charms professor offered Harry a chair. Although he was glad he wouldn't be humiliated in front of his classmates, it didn't ease his worry.

"Your achievements in spell-casting, or rather your lack of it, worry me." Flitwick told him. "I have talked about it with Professor McGonagall she had the same observation."

"Please don't send me home!" Harry desperately shouted.

"Why do you think we would send you home?" The charms professor asked him.

"I have not been able to cast any spell. I cannot use magic."

"That is not true." The little man agreed "Although you have been unable to cast any spell, your name did appear in the list of magical students. This means you should have magic which means the problem must lie somewhere else."

"Oh" Was all Harry could answer. He was confused what was going on but mostly he was glad. It felt like a pressure that had been building on his shoulder had been removed.

"Our first guess was it was a temporary mental block caused that attack on your House." Flitwick said. "However, if that was the case, it should be over by now."

"So you have no idea?" Harry asked.

"I have multiple ideas. I am not a charm professor for nothing." the teacher said with a wide grin that revealed his part-goblin ancestry "Can I do some diagnosis spells?"

"Sure." Harry said so happy that they weren't trying to send him away. He didn't know why the teacher thought he was worth helping but didn't mind it. It was a new experience of not being told that you're worthless.

The charms professor murmured some incantations while waving his hand. They sounded almost but not entirely like Latin. He didn't really understand them, not that he really cared.

At the first couple of spells the professor frowned. Harry suspected, he was not getting results and was getting a bit worried again. However at the third spell, the wand lit up in a green color. "Found it" the professor said cheerfully as if he had a victory. "It seems someone has bound your magic."

"Bound?" Harry asked in a confused voice.

Flitwick gave a summary in his lecture mode. "A magical bound is an artificial limit cast on a person, making it's magical core inaccessible to his or hers conscious thoughts. This makes it impossible to cast spells. I believe your problems are caused by this bound."

Harry was relieved when hearing this. He now knew what was wrong with him. Still there was a very important question.

"Is it reversible?" he asked.

"In many cases" Flitwick answered "There are potions that can reverse bound magic. Unfortunately, being bound for a long time can cause difficulties controlling magic. It all depends on how long you were bound."

"Can you find out when I have been bound?" Harry asked.

"I am not sure and this is all guesswork. Your parents could have cast it on you when you were little. They could have done this since you-know-who was actively searching for your house. A form of accidental magic could lead them to the house. If this is the case, you will likely be permanently hampered in your magical ability."

Harry nodded. This seemed like a plausible explanation.

"Another possibility is that the death eaters attacking your house did it. By binding your magic, they could make the wards degenerate."

Harry nodded as well. This seemed like another plausible theory.

"And those are just the scenarios on top of my head. Unfortunately we will likely never know."

"So, I will drink the potion to revert the bound?" harry asked.

"Yes." the charms professor said "Shall I bring you to the hospital wing?"

 **-= Albus Dumbledore, 10 minutes later =-**

Albus Dumbledore was in his office, staring intently into a device that looked a lot like a kaleidoscope one would find in a muggle toy store, he slowly rotated the outer tube a little counter clockwise and let out a deep sigh. After putting down the device he crossed out another line few lines in a notebook lying in front of him. The page was almost completely filled with crossed out text and some small formulas were hastily written in the margins.

At that moment, a small hidden painting of the gargoyle at the front door, alerted him. He looked at the painting and heard in a mental voice. "Madam Pomfrey is here."

The headmaster put his notebook away and sat comfortable in his chair before inviting the nurse to enter. "Come in Poppy."

"Mr potter came in the hospital wing. Well, Flitwick found out Harry's magic was bound. I need permission from his magical guardian to remove it. There is no guardian noted in his medical file. Do you know who it is?"

If the boy's magic would be unbound he would maybe see more magical abilities of the boy. His subtle observations of the boy's classes had disappointed him but now he saw the reason. In addition, it would be possible that the blood wards would find a power source again. He hadn't found out how the wards were changed.

"I will come." he said while walking to the door.

Dumbledore enjoyed walking through the castle. He could spend days talking with the paintings. Many of them were at least acquaintances. Some of them he called friends. The only thing that stopped him from talking too often with the paintings was that students would become paranoid.

Some muggle-borns had gotten the idea he used the paintings as a personal spy network. The truth was that most paintings had their own opinions and political goals. Unless there was a crime involved they didn't tell events to others.

And in the case that there was a crime, one had to look through a thousand years of political associations and agreements to even start understanding the complex interaction of the paintings.

Even though he had spent the last dozen years working with the wizengamot he was still sometimes amazed of votes that went totally different from what he expected. For some of those votes, he suspected that the social connections, between paintings, made the difference.

After a few minutes of walking through the familiar castle and interacting with the paintings, the headmaster arrived at the hospital wing.

Harry was present and sat on a bed.

"Hi Harry. I was informed that your magic was bound. Do you mind if I cast a few diagnosis spells to confirm this?"

"Go ahead" The young boy said.

The headmaster made a few elegant waves with his wand and came to the conclusion that the boy's magic was indeed bound.

"Pomfrey, it is true, you can give him the potion."

The nurse took a pale blue potion out of a cupboard. Opening the bottle released a smell with a hint of alcohol. The headmaster knew some potions required a basis of alcohol instead of water but was entertained by Harry's protests of the smell.

"Drink this." The nurse said. "You won't get drunk. There are ingredients in the potion to counter the effect of the alcohol."

Harry drunk the potion in one go before saying "Well, that tasted awful." And he promptly fainted.

 **-= Emma Granger, early evening =-**

Emma Granger was cooking a nice meal. Because some patients canceled their appointments she had been able to go home earlier. This meant she could prepare a slightly more complex meal than usual. She was just peeling some potatoes when her husband came in.

One look on his face informed her that he was shocked. His eyes were a bit wider than usual and when he finally spoke, the sound was a bit stuttering.

"Can we sit down for a moment?" he asked. "Smeltings Academy called. Hermione is going to the New Wood Hospital."

"What?" she asked while accidentally dropping a potato on the ground. She didn't bother to pick it up, turned off the fire and sat down beside her husband. "What happened?" she asked in a worried voice "Is she fine?"

"She started screaming just before dinner. Not much later, she fell asleep but was hyperventilating. The school called an ambulance but the personnel didn't know what was happening. They brought her to hospital. After that, they called us."

"Dan" she asked "Can we go and see her?"

She felt glad when her husband immediately agreed. After all, their daughter was far more important than any dinner.

Dinner? Did she turn off the fire below the onions she was frying? She went over to the pan and was greeted by the smell of burned food. This made her realize the answer before checking. She turned off the fire and threw the burned onions away. She did not bother cleaning anything.

Taking their coats they quickly went to the car. Daniel started driving towards hospital. In her opinion, the travel was too long. A big disadvantage of sending Hermione to a boarding school that was an hour away.

After an hour of city traffic and driving on the highway the couple arrived at the hospital. They parked their car and searched for the entrance.

Guided by some helpful arrows, they arrived at the entrance. Walking inside, they quickly found the receptionist.

They saw a long line of people in front of a receptionist and not knowing anything better to do they joined the line. After what felt like half an hour of waiting, but probably took no more than five minutes, it was their turn.

"We want to visit our daughter, Hermione Granger."

"Date of Birth?"

"19 September 1979."

"She is at the intensive care, room 1 point 73 A. Take the elevators to the first floor and follow the signs mounted on the ceiling."

"Thanks"

Not caring to wait for the elevator, they quickly walked up the stairs. They practically ran through the halls trying to find room 1.73A where their daughter would be.

When they came into the intensive care department, they saw quite a bit of chaos. Some doctors were running around.

They caught a few doctors in a heated discussion:

"Well, judging on the MRI scans, it seems that she has something like brain cancer."

"Brain cancer? Are you mad? I think it looks more like a severe case of hyperactivity. Her heart beats almost 200 beats per minute and her breathing is also very fast."

"That makes sense. Shall I call the experts from America?"

The Grangers ignored the talk between the doctors about the strange case and walked further, hoping with whole their heart their daughter would be all right.

Somehow she couldn't shake off the feeling that the doctors were talking about Hermione. Thinking what was wrong about their daughter, they almost didn't dare to go to the room. It was as if entering the room would only make it more real. Daniel took a deep breath and walked inside. She followed her husband.

When arriving in the room, the two Grangers saw a corner with a lot of devices with her daughter in between. She seemed indeed to be breathing very fast but looked like she was asleep.

Realization hit her. The patient the doctors outside were talking about was non other than her daughter. And the doctors didn't know what was wrong.

No she should not think about that, as long as there was hope.

The doctors didn't seem to have much hope.

But her Hermione was a strong girl, she said to herself without actually believing her daughter would be fine.

She felt teardrops forming at her eyes and she let them. The water obscured her vision a bit but she kept staying at her daughter's side.

After what felt like an eternity she heard someone calling then.

"Excuse me, this patient is scheduled for some tests."

"Could you tell us something more about her?" her husband asked.

"Well, we don't know as much as we would like. She is an unusual case."

"Can you tell us what you do know, or guess", he almost pleaded.

"Fine" he sighted, clearly not wanting to explain anything he didn't understood.

"At first sight, she seems to be asleep. We couldn't wake her so we put her in an MRI scanner to find out more. She has an unusual brain activity." the doctor spoke in a shaken voice "Her heartbeat and breathing is currently quite fast just to keep up. We are trying to calm her down while at the same time supplying extra oxygen."

 **-= Hermione Granger =-**

Meanwhile, Hermione Granger was totally unaware that she was in hospital.

 _She found herself in a small street with cottages all around them. She did not know where she was or even how she got here, she didn't feel lost. The place felt somehow like home. Even more home than her parents house did. However, she didn't have the faintest idea where she was or how it could feel like home._

 _The streets were almost deserted. That is, almost. She saw a raven-haired boy standing a couple of houses away from her. The boy somehow seemed familiar but she couldn't place it._

 _She walked up to the boy and greeted him. "Hi, I'm Hermione Granger"_

" _Hi Hermione, I'm Harry Potter" the boy responded while offering a hand._

 _She said enthusiastically "Nice to meet you" while accepting the hand. However, the hands didn't touch. When they should have collided, they went straight through each other instead._

" _Strange" he said. "I can't touch you, but you don't look like a ghost". Then his eyes widened "Am I a ghost?"_

 _That statement made her giggle. "No Harry, there are no such thing as ghosts."_

 _Harry said "Sure there are. I personally know some. For example the fat friar, nearly headless nick and unfortunately the bloody baron"._

 _Whenever the boy mentioned a name, she instantly visualized them in her mind. She felt as if she actually met them and knew how they looked like._

 _Then he added in a panicked voice "Oh shit, you must be a muggle and I told you about magic."_

" _Magic?" A minute ago she would have said magic didn't exist but now she could remember seeing actual spells. However, she was sure she never went to Hogwarts. Where did she heard that term? Why did she remember going there? Hermione was even more confused, "What is going on? I am a student of Smeltings, not Hogwarts."_

 _The next few minutes were even more confusing. As the talk continued, the two children remembered more and more details._

 _She remembered growing up in a cupboard. It never really fit as she was sure she had her own room. Her parents, Daniel and Emma, would never put her in a cupboard. That was something uncle Vernon would do. But wait, she didn't have an uncle called Vernon or an aunt Petunia._

 _Their offspring Dudley made her do homework in primary school. No, she was sure it started in Smeltings._

 _Then Harry made a suggestion that made sense. "It seems that somehow I can remember your history. Is that the same for you? Can you remember mine?"_

" _Yeah." she answered. "As soon as subjects are mentioned, I seem to acquire the memories around them."_

 _It all fit in place although she was not sure how it happened._

 _After their little introduction, they went to explore the area._

 _They first explored the street. As they walked further, the environment started to change. It was as if the environment became less defined. When they looked at the environment the details slowly appeared as if they were walking through a drawing that was not yet completed. If they looked away and then looked back the details were gone but slowly reappeared again. This gave a very surreal effect._

" _You know, this is a strange place." Hermione commented "It's almost like a dream."_

" _Nah," Harry answered "Dreams usually make more sense. I wonder where we are."_

" _Well, the last thing I remember is walking down to dinner. And at your side, drinking an unbinding potion."_

" _Could the potion have caused this?" he asked as they were walking back._

" _Maybe at your side" she answered "But I didn't drink one."_

" _I don't know either." he said shrugging._

" _Do you want to explore this." he said pointing to a small cottage. The green hedge had a small wooden gate. "It seems somehow familiar."_

" _I don't know", she said walking up to the house. "It is probably the property of someone else. It is from …"_

 _When she read the names on the gate, her eyes widened. "James and Lily Potter"_

 **-= Harry Potter =-**

 _Harry was amazed at the house. They both walked inside. The hall had a few lamps. It felt homely. On the left was the kitchen which seemed to be exactly like the kitchen from the Grangers, which didn't really fit in the house._

 _The living room In the living room was a big black dog, lying asleep. It was snoring but not very loud. He went over to the dog and petted it. The dog woke up and seemed to like it._

 _Meanwhile, Hermione went up the stairs and had found the library. Curiously, she opened the door. Inside were a lot of books on the ground._

 _The books looked like someone had pulled them from their bookcases and threw them on the ground. Looking inside, she saw many papers ripped out of the books. She found it barbaric to do something like this._

 _She started in picking up books and placing them in the correct places in the bookcases. Strangely, the books were about her or Harry' memories. What it meant that pages were torn out, she didn't know._

 _She found a series of books that was completely empty. 'Conversations between Harry and Hermione'. There were ten books in total. Judging the titles, each seemed to have covered a year, representing 1982 till 1991. Almost all the books were completely empty. Only in the last book had a few pages._

 _She opened the book and started reading. The text focused on the events of today which she found quite strange. The last sentence she read confused her the most. It said "While Hermione was reading about today, she wondered how this book updated itself. Indeed she was wondering the exact same thing."_

 **-= Emma Granger =-**

Emma looked at her daughter. She was lying in her hospital bed, hyperventilating. Everything seemed hopeless. She asked herself what she could do and couldn't find a single thing. When her daughter had problems, she would at least advise and comfort her. This time, even that was difficult. She tried holding her daughter's hand, to try to comfort her, but she saw no response.

She didn't know what to do and started crying. The water crawled over her face till it fell. The drips fell down, on her daughter's face.

Her husband tried to comfort her and probably himself as well. He put an arm around her and spoke "Hermione is a strong girl. She will get through this."

She didn't know for sure but she didn't dare to say something else. It was as if saying anything would be betraying Hermione.

She knew Hermione was affected by something even the doctors could not understand. Really comprehending this, was a different thing altogether. She hoped with whole her heart that her husband was right and that their daughter would get through.

Her attention was caught when she notices her daughter's breathing slowing down. What would this mean? Should she call a doctor? Where are they?

 **-= Harry Potter =-**

 _Harry had walked upstairs and found Hermione in the spot he knew her to be in, the library. He didn't know how he knew, but he just did. In fact, she knew a lot more about Hermione than he should know._

 _It was as if he knew her for quite some time, even though he met her today. No she knew her better. It was as if he had been her for the last ten years, in addition to have been himself. He could remember her memories and feel her emotions._

 _The events today were really quite strange. Probably the strangest thing that had ever happened to him. And that included the day Hagrid told him he was a wizard. The day when he found out his parents were not drunks and that he was famous for defeating the dark wizard Voldemort or that one time where Vernon had accidentally thanked him for making diner. No this was definitely stranger._

 _Judging from the sound, it had started to rain. He looked in her eyes and when they met they both smiled. Too bad that you couldn't hug each other in this place. He didn't know where the feeling came from but he would like to hug her. Still, their hands went through each other when they met so that would be impossible._

 _From far he heard a voice speaking. "Hermione is a strong girl. She will get through this." Judging from the voice, he quickly realized that this was Daniel._

" _I think we should be going." Harry said "Dad is worried."_

" _We'll see each other again." Hermione said. "Let's keep this place secret. It seems important for some reason."_

" _Sure."_

 _Leaving was very simple. One simply had to choose to wake up. The dreamland vanished in an instant they opened their eyes._

 **-= Hermione Granger =-**

Hermione breathing and heart rate slowed down to a normal level. She opened her eyes staring directly into his mother's eyes. "Hi mum, Hi dad" she said, not realizing where she was.

Both parents looked immensely relieved, seeing her awake. "Hi sweetheart" her mother said in a concerned voice. "How do you feel?"

"Great." she said enthusiastically. She was about to add something about having a new friend, but stopped and instead. The questions would be difficult to answer. Instead she tried to focus the attention away. "Although, I am a bit hungry. When do we eat?"

"Eh, Hermione." her father started "You are in Hospital."

"Why?"

"According to what I have heard, you started screaming, fainted and began hyperventilating. You gave everybody a scare." he told her. "For more information, we should ask the doctor. In fact, I believe informing them you're awake would be a good idea anyway."

While Dan fetched a doctor, Hermione felt the presence of someone else in her mind. _~Hi Harry~_ she mentally said to the presence. _~How are you doing?~_

 _~Fine~_ he answered _~Although someone found it a good idea to bring me to hospital. We seem to have had the same symptoms.~_

She knew somehow that Harry knew what had happened to her.

 _~In that case, I doubt the doctors here will find out anything useful.~_

The doctor walked in and asked Hermione the same type of questions and some checks were done. She was a bit annoyed at all the tests. She didn't feel like she was sick. She rather wanted to eat the dinner she missed.

Eventually, the doctor was finished with the tests. "Well, you seem to be healthy" he concluded. "However, we would like to keep you a few days for observation."

 **Author Notes:**

 **I** **have a couple of questions to the readers of this story.**

 **The first question is whether I gave** **enough clues to** **understand** **why I named my fanfic 'Unbound Souls'.**

 **My second question is what Harry and Hermione should do to experiment with the bond.** **A** **lthough I have a draft of the next chapter, it is** **significantly** **shorter than usual.** **If someone has a brilliant idea, you can either PM me or give a review.**

 **Next** **chapeter** **in two weeks.** **The chapter afterward (Tunnels and Trolls), will be released in four weeks.**


	6. Y1: Hospital Eperiments

_Last chapters: Harry struggled with magic classes. His magic was unbound which made both Harry and Hermione collapse. They visited some kind of_ _dream-scape_ _and discovered some strange empty books. Hermione's parents were very worried but Emma's voice woke Hermione._

 **-= Harry Potter, 11 October 1991, evening=-**

Harry and Hermione were both in hospital, eating. Although the hospitals were different, they felt the same to Harry and Hermione. In both hospitals, the personnel, required them to stay in bed.

In the New Wood Hospital they looked at brain scans and other researches from Hermione and were still very confused. Hermione's insistences that she was alright, didn't help the doctors at all. They seemed to be inclined not to let her leave until they found out exactly what had been wrong with her.

In Saint Mungo's, the doctors were less scared about his fainting and wanted to let him stay for at least one day. Afterwards he would not be allowed to use magic for one week. His magical core needed time to stabilize.

Even the schoolbooks that the two of them gotten, didn't occupy too much of their time. This resulted that they had a lot of free time at their hands.

 _~Harry, I wonder what this connection between us can do.~_ Hermione told him over said connection.

 _~I have no idea.~_ Harry answered. He tried to be helpful and made a suggestion _~I can ask one of the mediwitches.~_

Restrained and with a very subtle hint of fear Hermione answered. _~No, I don't know why but I somehow have the feeling that it is better if we keep this secret.~_

 _~Whatever you want.~_ Harry said fully well knowing that when this came out, it would indeed be impossible to keep this secret for long. _~I can always look into it at Hogwarts library.~_

 _~That would be very useful~_ Hermione answered with a happy feeling _~But maybe we can find out more about it now.~_

 _~How?~_

 _~We could experiment a little bit._ ~ Hermione suggested. _~I noticed that I could remember some facts about Hogwarts. We could ask each other questions and see whether the other knows the answer. In this way, we can find out what we can and cannot share. Shall I start with a question?~_

 _~Sure~_

 _~What are my parents names?~_

 _~Daniel Granger and Emma Maria Granger nee Parker.~_ Harry started to describe how they looked like. He then continued to tell her their birthdays and ages.

Harry told that they married in the beginning of December 1978 and what they discovered after their extended honeymoon in France. **(1)**

 _~Correct.~_

 _~So who raised me?~_ Harry asked over the mental connection.

Hermione didn't give the expected answer. _~Well, you can hardly call what Vernon and Petunia have done raising someone._

 _There is the old lady on the opposite side of the street with all the cats. Miss Figgs is demented and can hardly remember her own name and never remembered your one either. I do not think that counts as raising._

 _Your 4th grade teacher, Isabella Simons, was pretty nice to you. She was the only one who found out about your abuse. Too bad that she claimed to have forgotten about that incident when the child-care services asked her. I mean, there is no way that she would have forgotten how Dudley pushed you out of the first floor window. It was a miracle you had no wounds.~_

 _~You know there were two strange men that visited her. Maybe they intimidated her.~_ Harry suggested.

Hermione agreed. _~It is quite possible those two men would have intimidated her. On the other hand, they were real weirdo's, and did not seem to be dangerous. The strangest thing I remember from them is their awful taste of dressing. Who on a sunny summer day would wear a scarf and rain shoes.~_

After a few seconds Hermione continued. _~So, since I could not find anyone who I can say that raised you, I have to pass this question.~_

Although this was not the answer Harry expected to get, it was unfortunately correct. Compared to Dan and Emma, the Dursley's had indeed done a very, very lousy job.

 _~Okay, What am I wearing?~_

Harry started to describe the Girls uniform for Smelting Academy she was wearing. He added the description of the necklace she had gotten from Charlotte last birthday. Then he continued describing her shoes, socks and eventually both started to blush when he described her underwear complete with sizes and colours.

 _~Okay, you told me what I wear with details. But do you think I am pretty?~_ Hermione asked with some hope in her voice.

Harry felt that this would be a very difficult question to answer. Not because he had to formulate the question tactfully but because he did not think he could give a meaningful answer. _~Hermione. I can feel that you don't feel pretty but you want me to like your appearance. I do not get sufficient information over this connection to form an opinion. I know the details but I can't seem to see how well the details fit together. That said, should you be no perfect beauty, it doesn't matter to me. There are far more important things than beauty.~_

 _~Not what I hoped as an answer.~_

 _~I'm sorry.~_

 _~Don't be. I rather have a truthful answer than a lie to try to make me happy. I don't think that we could reliably lie to each other_ _any-ways._ _In addition, it is very interesting.~_

 _~What is interesting?~_ Harry asked her.

 _~I think it means that we access each other's memories like he or she perceives it. That is why you could not form an opinion whether I was pretty. Neither can I form an opinion about you. We only know each other like we see ourselves.~_

 _~That is indeed interesting.~_

After a few more experiments in that direction, they came back to the more general questions. Harry asked _~What happened at my cousin's birthday party?~_

 _~A large boa constrictor escaped from the zoo. He scared a lot of people which you found a little bit funny. It wasn't as if that snake would try to hurt anyone. Somehow your cousin found his way inside the snake's tank. Despite that he would be an easier candidate to have released the snake, because he went inside that tank, you got punished for it. Somehow your uncle claimed it was your freakishness and he locked you five days in the …~_

Harry knew her eyes went wide when she realised where Harry was locked in.

 _~Correct.~_ Harry told her. _~And yes, you were also correct about the cupboard under the stairs.~_

 _~My turn.~_ Hermione told him _~When in 4th degree I was required to give a talk on a subject of my choice. What was my choice of subjects?~_

 _~Easy question. That was about your favourite animal, the otter. You were the only person in the class that got a ten out of your talk.~_ Harry Answered _~I only got a 7 when I gave a talk at my school.~_

 _~Which was also about the otter. Harry do you think that was a coincidence. I mean there were books in that mental library about conversations between us. All books were blank though.~_

 _~Could be. I remember working very hard in grade 4 and 5 in the hope that I could skip grade 6. I had good enough marks but the Dursley's wouldn't allow it.~_

 _~Yeah. I worked very hard as well.~_ Hermione commented. _~Luckily I didn't get punished for doing better than Dudley.~_

 _~Yeah that was awful, but you have nice parents. Treasure them well.~_

 _~So, we can not only read each other's memories but our pasts are connected as well.~_ Hermione suggested. _~Otherwise, how can we explain that we both did the otter talk and worked hard in 4th and 5th grade~_

 _~I think you are right, Hermione~_ Harry answered.

 _~I am sure I am right. Remember that I found those strange books in that library._ ~ Hermione asked _~I guess that we had conversations in the past but that we have somehow forgotten about it.~_

 _~How could I forget about you.~_ Harry responded a bit angrily.

 _~I don't know. Let's add that to our ever increasing list of questions.~_ Hermione suggested.

She continued providing more reasons for her argument that the bond must have existed for quite some time. _~The connection between us could explain why you didn't do a lot in 6th grade. After all, we were following 7th year material as well so it would be a bit pointless. Especially after the disappointment that the Dursley's wouldn't let you skip that year like school suggested.~_

 _~Well, I don't think you would ever have allowed me to do that.~_

 _~I don't know.~_ Hermione commented. _~I would have thought it was some kind of cheating. On the other hand, you did know your material. After all, you got high marks for your tests and the teacher even mentioned that you often referred to material above your level.~_

 _~I guess that, even though I don't remember how I got the answers, I have to thank you for that.~_ Harry told her. _~If we had a connection before, you must have helped me in the past as well.~_

 _~So, I guess our memories are wiped and your magic was bound.~_ Hermione commented. _~Do you agree with me? Any idea when that could have happened?~_

 _~I agree but I no idea what happened.~_ Harry told her. _~All I know is that I first came into contact with the magical world, that day we got three Hogwarts letters delivered by owls. Strangely enough my uncle seemed to expect them. I wonder why.~_

 _~Maybe that's a clue to our mystery.~_

 **-= Harry Potter, 11 October 1991, evening=-**

It was evening and soon Harry had to go to sleep. Because of that he stepped out of bed and walked over to the bathroom.

He opened the door revealing a toilet, Roman-like bath and a sink. It was unfortunate the sink had no mirror as it would complicate the evening ritual. Still, he knew well enough what he had to do.

His eyes went over the sink when he realised it wasn't there.

Walking back, he searched through his possessions. Damn, it wasn't here either.

He started going through his mind where he had last seen it. He didn't bring it with him to Saint Mungo's as he was unconscious at that time. It could be that any of the teachers had brought it, but he couldn't remember seeing it or hearing them mention it.

Could it be in the Slytherin dorm? He wasn't sure. For one, he never remembered leaving it in the Slytherin bathroom. They had no mirror in that room either, and no place to store it.

Maybe, he stored it in his trunk. He wasn't sure. Especially because he could not remember where in the trunk he would have stored it. What did that mean?

He started thinking when he had last seen his toothbrush. He visualized it in his mind. The soft purple toothbrush with it's different type of bristols was a high quality toothbrush. He remembered the instructions how to brush your teeth.

Suddenly he remembered where it was. He was thinking about the wrong toothbrush. This one was Hermione's one. But did that meant that he never had a toothbrush?

Yes, he distinctly remembered sneaking in the bathroom and using his cousin's old toothbrush. He was caught once by his uncle resulting him to spend the next day locked up. His uncle and aunt did not care about him brushing his teeth. Even the toothbrush and toothpaste that was mailed to him by a dentist was confiscated.

First he asked himself what he should do. In the absence of a mirror, he let some water flow in the sink and looked in the reflection. Between the ripples of the water he could see that his teeth were not very clean.

Walking out of the bathroom, he searched for a nurse. After looking through a couple of rooms, he found one.

He walked to the nurse and asked the question that was at the top of his tongue. "Excuse me, could I borrow a Toothbrush?"

"A what?"

"A toothbrush." Harry explained. When the nurse still had an expression of confusion on her face harry started to explain the thing. "A toothbrush is a brush to clean your teeth."

"I am sorry but I don't think we have something like that. Why do you need one? And since it is called a toothbrush, would you need a separate one for every tooth?"

"No, that will not be needed. A single one can be used to clean all my teeth."

"And you're sure it isn't called a teethbrush?" The nurse asked

"No it is a toothbrush, not a teethbrush." Harry explained a bit irritated.

"If you want I could cast a glamour charm on them. Your teeth will probably look cleaner than when you would have brushed them."

"I want to clean them so that the teeth will not decay. If teeth are not cleaned properly, small holes an appear. These holes get bigger over time and eventually your whole teeth can rot away."

"Where did you get these strange ideas?" **(2)**

"Please do not tell it further. My housemates would make me a laughing stock, but I have spend some time in the muggle world."

"You? Why would you be raised there? Surely Dumbledore could have found you a nice wizarding home."

"I don't know but how do wizards care about their teeth?"

The nurse seemed to be glad to be able to talk about stuff she knew about. "In the wizarding world, you do not need no work on such tedious tasks as brushing your teeth. There are numerous other solutions."

"Like?"

"In the wizarding world, we use a denture potion. It removes any pain from your mouth and makes you able to chew even if you have lost all your teeth. Some people also use glamour charms to show a youthful smile."

"So wizards let their teeth rot away and use fake ones."

"Most of them, yes."

"I would rather like to chew with real teeth."

"Trust me, you won't notice the difference."

"So, wizards just let their teeth rot away?" Harry asked in shock.

"Yeah. I guess so" The nurse answered. "But if you really want you could theoretically use skele-gro to regrow teeth. Your teeth are vanished and regrown using skele-gro."

"Skele-gro?"

"A potion to regrow bones." The nurse explained "Teeth are bones as well, so with minor modifications in the recipe, you can use it to regrow teeth."

"I must warn you that regrowing bones hurts a lot. And the denture potion works just as well."

"And is there any wizard way to clean my teeth?" Harry asked in desperation.

"Well, I guess, you could use a cleaning charm on your teeth."

The nurse thought for a moment before adding. "If I cast that charm on your teeth, will you go quietly to bed?"

"Yes" Harry said.

 **-= Hermione Granger, 14 October 1991, Morning=-**

Hermione woke up at approximately the same time as Harry. Tonight she dreamed about that strange house again. She and Harry finished placing all the books on the ground in the required places. In addition she had looked how the library itself was organized.

At first she needed to figure out that there was a system to it but it actually made sense. Most of the books were neatly organized. Although the books were not sorted in alphabetic order as she first expected, she soon found out that the books all had a label. The books were sorted by the code on the label. Color-coded bookmarkers marked important memories making them easily accessible. Each bookmarker had a title and some keywords.

The books itself also contained codes in the side. When she first encountered them, she was a bit angry. How could anybody write notes in a book like that. When she found out what it was, she reluctantly accepted it.

The codes were references to other books, including page number in which relevant information could be found.

 **-= Harry Potter, 31 October 1991 =-**

It was Halloween and everything was eating from a huge meal. Pumpkin lanterns floated spookily through the hall with a tendency of forming small groups as bouncing around as if they were having a conversation.

The decorations all around the caste were well made and emitted a feeling of luxury.

Hermione was at Smelting Academy and they didn't have these kinds of decorations. Not that anything was wrong with her. She was doing fine. It was merely that the doctors wanted to know what had happened and refused to let her go, before they had an acceptable explanation.

He was talking with his fellow Slytherins. Not that he considered most of them to be friends, but Tracy had advised him to be at least social with them, but staying in the background.

Currently, it was difficult to do so. A lot of Slytherins seem to have new interest in him, now that it was clear that Harry was no squib, whatever that word meant.

Two boys, he didn't talk with a lot, took a seat beside him. He thought the slightly taller one was Theodore Nott. He sometimes talked with the Malfoy but for some political reason, only when his two goons were absent.

The other boy had a dark skin and Harry thought he was called Blaize Zabini. He had a reasonably high status in the Slytherin house. It slightly surprised him that there was no discrimination against skin colour in the wizarding world.

"Congratulations Harry. That was a brilliant move." Blaize told him while taking a pumpkin pie from the table.

Harry was surprised. What moves did he make? Were they talking about politics, like usual? Probably. But he had not the faintest idea where the two were talking about.

"What move do you mean?"

"Binding your own magic, of course."

It took a moment before his brain caught up.

"WHAT? I didn't bind my magic!" Harry said to them in a little loud voice. It wasn't shouting but Harry felt that he raised his voice a bit too much.

"Sure you didn't." Blaize said winking. "I mean, confessing now would destroy the whole reason for binding your magic."

"We underestimated you, thinking you're worse in magic than Crabbe and Goyle." Theo added. "But now we know it was all a political stunt."

"Unlike your parents, you're a true Slytherin." Blaize said approvingly.

 _~Parents? Dan and Emma never went to Gryffindor.~_

 _~No, Harry, they mean James and Lily.~_

 _~Oh yeah. Those were my parents.~_ Harry responded mentally slapping himself. _~I wonder who my parents were.~_

 _~I don't know. I guess they must have loved you.~_

 _~Like Dan and Emma?~_ Since he shared his memories and most of his thoughts with Hermione, he actually saw them as his parents despite the fact that they never met.

 _~Yeah~_ Hermione responded with the warm feeling they both shared about them.

He tried to imagine losing them and it would be too bad to imagine.

~If that is, I think they deserve some respect.~ Harry said ~I mean, Petunia never took me to their graves.~

 _~Wait a second.~_ Hermione responded _~Didn't your parents die at_ _Halloween_ _1981?~_

 _~I think they did.~_ Harry responded. _~Oh my god, that is exactly ten years ago.~_

 _~Are you going to ignore the fact they died ten years ago?~_

 _~NO!~_ Harry told in a mentally hard voice _~I think it would be a good thing to go to the common room and give them a silent memorial.~_

 _~That is a nice thought for them~_

Unaware of the defence teacher running towards the great hall, he got up from the table, excused himself to his friends and walked out of the hallway. He took the familiar staircase and descended into the dungeons.

 **-= Albus Dumbledore, 31 October 1991 =-**

Meanwhile the headmaster was sitting in his office. There were many papers on his desk.

Since Harry's uncle and aunt didn't want him, after the incident this summer, he had to look for alternatives. It would be ideal if the blood wards could be transferred to his new home. But for that he had to find a relative of Lily Evans.

At first he had asked the police, a kind of muggle Aurors, what living relatives she had. That was how he finally arrived at the Dursley's. He had talked with them and they had taken the baby in.

Of course, they would be compensated according to the Potter will. That is where it went wrong. They should have been paid a reasonable compensation. Gringotts did not process this statement and no payments were ever done to them.

Worse was that there were payments done, just not to them. He found out that a monthly allowance of five galleons was subtracted from the Potter vaults **(3)**. He had not been able to find out where the money went. He was not happy that someone was getting paid from the boys vaults for work he didn't do. The goblins hadn't answered where the money went. It felt a lot like that bank was turning corrupt. Luckily they stopped making the transactions since he inquired about them.  
With the promised compensation going to who-know-where it was no wonder the Dursley's developed a kind of hate against the magical people. Looking back, he should have observed the boy better. He should have made some time in his schedule. Now the relationship was likely beyond fixing. He had seen it in the boy's eyes when he visited his office. He needed to place Harry somewhere else and it had to happen soon.

That was no easy task on itself. Although he could request a replacement based on the child abuse, it would certainly turn into a political debate. A debate that was not beneficial to either Harry's placement or his sanity. No he had to move him while using different rules. That much he owed him.

The best place to place Harry was by an unknown blood relative of Lily. Both for the legal stability and for the blood wards. There was a theory that muggleborns were born from a line of squibs. If that was true, he may be able to find a relative of Lily Evans with magic.

Depending of course who the family would be, this would be ideal. That was why he was looking through pages and pages of family trees. Although some charms made it quicker, it was still a slow process.

After almost an hour of searching, he found what he was looking for. His wand lit up in a green colour when examining the Prewett Family tree. He finally found the name Evans on a family tree.

He looked over it, to find out more about the person. It was a girl with the name Eugenia Evans (nee Prewett). She was born, 12 January 1907 which meant that if she attended Hogwarts, she should still be in the records.

With a wave of his hand, he summoned the record book out of the bookcase. Opening it at the year 1918, he saw a list of students. There was no Eugenia Prewett that started school that year.

That was good news. It was an indication that the girl was indeed a squib. Not that he could be sure. It could be that she learned magic at another school, like Beauxbatons or Avalon Academy.

He quickly dismissed that thought. Her brother did attend Hogwarts and most families send their children to the same school.

It looked like a promising option. The Weasley's were a kind family where Harry could grow up in his teenage years. He needed to confirm some things before approaching them, but he had no real doubt that Eugenia was indeed Lily's grandmother. Picking up a parchment, He started to write one of her closest living relatives.

 _Dear Tessie Prevett_

 _I would like to request a meeting with you this month, on a day that is convenient for you. I would like to discuss some questions about your family tree._

 _I appreciate the time and effort to meet with me and discuss these questions. I will be waiting for a conformation in the next few days. The most convenient days for me are Mondays between 10:00 and 11:15 and Saturdays between 13:30 and 14:45._

 _Kind Regards_

 _Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,_

 _Order of Merlin (first class),_

 _Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,_

 _Supreme …_

He was almost finished with his letter when a patronus cat arrived. In the voice of the transfiguration professor it meowed that Quirrell spotted a troll in the dungeons.

 **Author Notes:**

 **Brian1972: I love both theories you developed but I personally use a third one.**

 **JuliST: There is more to that dreamscape than meets the eye. I hope that I gave some clues, what was in the empty books.**

 **(1) Can you figure out what happened in the honeymoon of Emma and Daniel. Enjoy the puzzle. All clues you should need, are given.**

 **(2) Facts in the Potter universe: 1. Dentists is a virtually unknown profession. 2. Some people have bad teeth even though skele-gro seems like a valid candidate to regrow teeth. Conclusion: There must be an easier way than skele-gro.**

 **(3) In my story, a galleon was in 1991 worth approximately 50 pounds. Due to inflation of the Pound, this would be almost 100 pounds today. I guess 500 pounds is a realistic amount for a month of childcare.**


	7. Y1: Tunnels & Trolls

_Last Chapters: Harry got a mental link with Hermione. Hermione is at a muggle school. Harry is walking towards the Slytherin dorms, unaware of the troll in the dungeons._

 **-=Harry Potter, 31 October 1991 =-**

Harry was walking to his dorm, through the corridors of the dungeons. In his mind, he was thinking about his parents and what kind of people they would have been.

At the first corner, he thought what he knew of his parents, which was ridiculously little. He heard once that he looked quite like his biological father. He didn't know the differences though.

At the second corner he thought that based on the pictures he had once seen of his grandparents, he would likely have gotten the green eye colour from his grandfather. This meant that his dad likely had no green eyes.

At the third corner, he suddenly smelled an awful smell. It reminded him of a wet dog, only much much worse.

He put his hand on his nose and tried to ignore the smell while looking for an alternative path to the common room. Unfortunately, there were only a few paths through the dungeon and judging from the increasing intensity of the smell, it would probably be somewhere in the dungeon.

After a few more turns, he saw the source of the smell.

A large humanoid creature was walking in the corridor on his left. He was twelve foot high, had a fat tummy and carried a giant club.

Although he could not identify this beast exactly, Harry was quite sure it was some kind of troll.

Harry put a few steps backwards not knowing what kind of creature this was. The large club seemed dangerous so he started to scream.

The troll looked into the direction of the sound.

 _~Well Harry, you just alerted him.~_ Hermione mentally told him. _~Screaming doesn't help. Nobody is around.~_

 _~Thanks for the advise.~_ Harry answered _~But next time tell me it a little bit earlier.~_

 _~I think you should run.~_

Harry realized that he had been standing still, in shock. Her reminder helped him to get a grip on himself and flee. He quickly ran back into the corridor he came from.

From somewhere in the back he periodically heard a stamp sound. It was quite scary to hear a troll running after you. Judging from the sound, the troll was winning ground. This of course was not surprising as trolls have longer legs than most eleven year old boys.

 _~Okay, what are the trolls weaknesses~_ , he thought to himself.

Hermione heard it as well and replied _~sunlight~_ in the hope to be helpful.

 _~It is evening and I am underground.~_ Harry responded. _~Do you have more ideas?~_

 _~Maybe their stupidity?~_

 _~That could work, but a troll doesn't really have to be smart to chase me.~_

When he could almost feel the troll behind him he knew that keeping on the run would only get him caught. He tried to use the trolls stupidity as his advantage and he quickly ducked and changed directions. The troll tried to hit him but he was startled by the unexpected change of movement of the boy.

He ran back in the hallway, hoping that some miracle happened.

The troll heard his footsteps again and came running towards him.

He tripped and fell. Ignoring the pain on his hands he rolled over.

Now looking at the troll again, Harry saw the troll lift his club.

 _~Harry, use your magic to make the club weightless, just like the feather. Remember the lesson you had earlier today. Just let it fall on the trolls head.~_

 _~Good Idea, Hermione~_

"Wingardium Leviosa"

Harry felt a large portion of his magical leave his body at the moment the spell connected with the club. Apparently, this took a lot more effort than a feather.

The troll looked a bit surprised at his log. He took a better grip on the piece of wood and started to swing again.

 _~It didn't work~_ , Harry told Hermione, while barely rolling away. The impact destroyed a couple of tiles in the floor on his left.

In the roll, he saw a man walking in the corridor. He was never happier to see his head of house.

The troll lifted the club again.

"HELP!" he shouted.

He rolled away again, this time to his right.

The teacher send a chain of spells at the troll.

"Lumos Solar … Sectumsempra"

The troll started to fall over. Blood poured out of the beasts cutting wounds. Harry had little time to react. The corpse came closer with an immense speed. He pushed himself to the side and rolled to the side, just in time.

Snape looked at him with a hint of disgust in his eyes.

"Potter, detention next Saturday." He said "As long as I am your head of house, I will not tolerate this kind of reckless behaviour. You are just like your father."

"But" Harry wanted to protest. He didn't try to find the troll. The troll found him.

But before he completed his sentence, Snape interrupted him. "Disrespect for a teacher? Make it two Saturdays."

 **-= Harry & Hermione, 4 November 1991, morning =-**

 _~Don't go Hermione. This is so wrong.~_ Harry begged hoping that Hermione would listen again to him. Last time, she didn't go because Harry asked her. She made it clear that she would only skip one lesson.

 _~Harry, if I don't go, the teachers will notice if I skip the lesson again and again.~_ Hermione told him with a firm but gentle mental voice _~I need to go to Physical Education. I can't keep skipping the class even if it is not my favourite one.~_

 _~But your classmates? It's not fair to them, I will remember showering together with them.~_ Harry said. _~I will see them … without clothing.~_

 _~You already remember them, undressing, from my memories before we got the bond.~_ She reminded him.

 _~That is not helping. You know, we need to find a solution now for when we grow older.~_ According to Hermione's biology book boys and girls change during puberty. Although they hadn't hit it yet, they knew that within a few years he would probably look at girls in a different way. For now, it just felt wrong. Like he was spying on them. He couldn't do that to girls like Charlotte and Angie. It didn't matter that he MIGHT see them from Hermione's point of view. It was just plain wrong.

 _~Harry, what do you want me to do? Skip all the PE lessons? I could get in so much problem if I tried to do that. Not to mention how disappointed, Dan and Emma would be. Last week I have given us some time to find a solution, for something that could theoretically become a problem in the future. None of us found a way.~_

 _~Please, we can take more time to find a solution.~_ Harry begged _~Just one more lesson.~_

 _~That is the same thing as you said last time. My decision is final. Unless you find a long-term solution I will go to the lesson.~_

 _~This is really creepy.~_ Harry tried in vain.

 _~It is creepy when boys look at the girls with certain intentions.~_ Hermione told him. _~And as long as you are not going to look at the girls that way, it is not a problem. That gives us time to find a solution. If you'll start looking at them in that way, we'll figure something out. Understood?~_

 _~Yes~_ Harry said, fearing they would have the same conversation when he hit puberty. He could only imagine how much more uncomfortable it would be then.

 **-= Harry Potter, 9 November 1991, evening =-**

A week later, just after the horrible detentions with Snape were finished, Harry was walking through the hallways. Professor Snape has gotten in his head that he deliberately went looking for the troll and as his head of house he couldn't complain to anybody else about the unfair punishment.

Therefore he just spend his evening cleaning cauldrons. He couldn't believe how filthy some of them were. What did Snape or the upper year students brew in them?

At some points during the cleaning, he hesitated because of safety guidelines he learned from his chemistry professor.

Snape did not like this and called him a pampered prince. The git claimed that he tried to avoid punishment, just like your father. As if that is true. He was merely applying safety regulations, not trying to avoid cleaning them altogether. (It would have been a nice bonus, though.)

On his way back, he heard a his favourite pair of redheads talking with each other. They were carrying some potions with them.

He walked over and said "Hi Fred, Hi George", hoping he remembered them correctly.

"I'm Fred" said the boy who he could swear was George.

"Sorry Fred."

"It's alright. …"

"… Even mum confuses us all the time …"

"… which we use to prank her …"

"… much to her annoyance."

"Anyway, where are the potions for?" Harry asked, hoping he heard about some cool prank.

"We got some calming draught …"

"… for our dear brother Ron."

"What happened to him?"

"You didn't know? He went into the third floor corridor at Halloween two weeks ago."

"No, I wasn't there. I've gone away early and was in the dungeons."

"A date with a troll, I heard." Fred joked.

"Is it true that she fell for you?" George added.

For a moment, Harry thought about rejecting their claims but decided to play ahead anyway. "Yeah, I was overwhelmed by her smell."

"So romantic." The twins said together laughing.

Harry thought for a couple of moments before coming up with the pun "Yeah, but don't try anything. She fell for me." emphasising on the word fell.

When it was the twins turn again, they were much quicker. "Don't worry she is a big girl."

After a couple of puns, harry asked again what happened to Ron.

"Our brother thought …"

"… for some stupid reason …"

"… that it was a good idea to go into the forbidden corridor …"

"… at the third floor …"

"… which is guarded by a three-headed dog …"

"… some nasty plants …"

"… and a giant chessboard"

"Tell me more." Harry encouraged

"At first, Ron encountered a Cerberus …"

"… which is a three headed dog …"

"… which was so bored with Ron that it fell asleep."

"Ron opened a passageway below it's paws. ... "

"… and jumped down in a dark hole …"

"… which was covered with plants …"

"… that try to strangle you."

"Interesting" Harry said "Fluffy is not the only thing guarding whatever is down there."

"Fluffy?" the twins bellowed in surprise and gave him strange looks as if asking what kind of idiot would name a vicious giant three-headed dog fluffy.

Harry answered as best as he could. "The three-headed dog from Hagrid. He thinks it is cute, which is why he named him so."

The strange looks from the twins seemed to disappear when he told them that Hagrid gave Fluffy his name. Had they experience with Hagrid's taste of pets?

"Anyhow, he survived the plants …"

"… in some way …"

"… and went further …"

"… to encounter some flying keys …"

"… and cursed brooms …"

"… that can only accelerate."

"He used one of the brooms …"

"… which was cursed …"

"… to catch the key …"

"… and opened the door to the next room …"

"… despite some broken limbs."

"Then he encountered a giant chess set …"

"… and Ron is good at chess …"

"… so he stepped in and played the king."

"Meanwhile the teachers notice he was missing …"

"… and went after him."

"Our heroic defence professor …"

"… had ordered a headcount at the great hall …"

"… and Percy found out that our brother was missing …"

"… so Quirrell went after him …"

"… and was the first to arrive at the scene …"

"… a few minutes before Dumbledore."

 **-= Albus Dumbledore, 10 November 1991, just after breakfast =-**

Albus Dumbledore was waiting in his office. He has asked the two professors that initially stayed in the hall, to protect the students, to discuss the events on Halloween. He had the feeling that Quirrell used Ron for an attack on the stone and hoped to get some proof. The teacher played it very well. While he was being seen as the hero of the school, it was difficult to fire him. Especially since he had not been present at the moment.

"Come in Quirinus."

"Good Afternoon Dumbledore, Good Afternoon Snape." He answered while opening the door.  
"Same to you." The headmaster answered. "Have a chair."

After the DADA teacher sat down beside his potions teacher he gave them all a cup of tea and offered a lemon drop with it. Not that they took the sweets but that was not needed. In the tea of Quirrell were three drops of versivatium. He wanted to have some answers to some important questions and this was a way.

"Why are we here?" Quirrell asked him.

"I have called you two here to reflect on the events of Halloween. Some of the events are still clouded in mysteries and I hope to dissolve some of those clouds today."

"Quirinus, you found a troll in the dungeon. Could you please tell how you found the creature in the first place."

"I had a feeling someone would use the evening to remind everyone of the dark days of the past. It was exactly ten years ago that you-know-who was defeated. I was afraid someone would use that day as a not so peaceful memorial to the dark lord."

"Who did you have in mind?" Albus asked while noting that the defence professor was the only one who hadn't drunk a single sip of his tea.

"Nobody in particular, but it is rumoured that certain people were death eaters that bribed their way out of Azkaban. Some of those people, have children in the Slytherin house." He answered while quickly adding "Not that I want to accuse specific people, of course."

"And what did you expect?" He asked.

"Minor things." The DADA teacher answered. "Texts written on walls. Minor curses but nothing like a Troll."

"And you couldn't defeat it?" Dumbledore asked him, trying to trap him in his conversation. He knew that an adult wizard with newts in DADA and care of magical creatures, should be able to deal with a troll. If the teacher said he couldn't, it was a reason why he could fire him and make the school safer.

"I think the troll would have given me some problems, but that I would have defeated it in the end. That said, I didn't know whether it was alone. If there were more, I had to get help."

Damn, he didn't fall for this trap. Still, he had to continue the conversation.

"And that was how you came running in the great hall shouting for help, isn't it?"

Albus turned his head to his beloved potions professor. "Severus, could you please tell me, what happened in the great hall after the other teachers left left." By asking his potions professor, the other teacher would not have the lead where the conversation was going.

"Well, Quirrell started to organize the students. He asked the fifth year prefects to count heads. The Sixth and seventh years he asked to guard the entrances to the hall. Others he asked to focus on specific entrances to the hall. I was actually surprised by his leadership and his quick thinking. It was almost like he planned it beforehand."

"Although I do plan against some scenario's, the troll wasn't one of them. I adopted another scenario on the fly. Basically, I did what made the most sense, at the time." Albus was not sure whether he believed the professor. He had seen many fights and they usually quickly led to chaos. Leading people took training, and he was quite sure Quirrell didn't have this kind of training. Something strange was going on but he could hardly blame someone for being competent.

"So, you two barricaded the great hall."

Both men nodded.

"Severus why did you leave the hall?"

"Well, Marcus told me Mr Potter was missing. The brat was reported to have gone to the dungeons. Even though I couldn't imagine why he was so stupid to do that, I went to rescue him."

"You left the students in the great hall?"

"Like I said before, Professor Quirrell had the situation in the great hall under control."

"Thanks for rescuing him. If Harry would have died, the evening would have been a new black page in history."

"And you, Quirinus, why did you leave?"

"Well, my reasons are similar to Professor Snape. I heard from Percy Weasley, the fifth year Gryffindor prefect, that his younger brother was missing. I went after him."

"And how did you find him?"

The teacher seemed to pause for a little bit too long before answering. "Paintings"

"What do you mean with paintings?" he asked, having the feeling that he was making things up.

"I asked several paintings if they had seen a student. When I discovered that he went to the third corridor, I went after him."

"And you didn't send me a message? You used to have such a beautiful raven patronus and I know what kind of traps there are down there."

"I … I didn't think about it." He somehow seemed uncomfortable. Was something wrong about his patronus? Albus was not sure. But his story was most definitely fishy.

 **-= Harry Potter, 24 November 1991, evening =-**

Harry and Hermione have both been reading about mental connections. He had caught up with his homework and had some more free time nowadays. He enjoyed using some of that free time to 'chat' with Hermione. Every evening, just after curfew they started 'talking' with each other. Usually they would talk about anything that happened during the day. A few games of exploding snap Harry played with the twins, good books that Hermione read after studying. It wasn't actually needed, to talk to each other like that. You could read each other's memories anyway. It felt like a good habit to do that anyway.

But the question was what kind of connection they shared, nagged them. Especially Hermione wanted to know everything that was to be known about it. This was a more difficult quest than they first thought.

There were literally hundreds of types of bonds and none of them seemed to be the true answer. They had studied for at least a month about magical connections but couldn't find a definite answer what kind of connection they shared.

The connections are called bonds. There were a lot of bonds. They currently found around fifty types. They were quite different. You couldn't compare a soul-bond to a goblin bond, or a Veela bond to a twin-bond. Some bonds were rarer than others, but there were a lot of types of bonds out there.

Some bonds instantly made your mad, like the time-bond. This type of bond was discovered 700 years ago. Christopher Trelawney accidentally bonded with a double of himself using a time-turner. It was said, this drove him crazy. Whatever a time-turner was, the bond did not seem to be similar to that of Harry and Hermione as none of them were, as far as they knew, mad.

They currently found two types of bonds that matched reasonably. The soul bond and the Veela bond.

Both worked similar. You would share a mental link and memories. The mental link works much like conversations except that it could broadcast emotions as well. When recalling memories, they would be as intense as experiencing the event itself. However, the events itself do not really shape a person.

This matched their bond pretty well. After all, Hermione could remember the fear Harry felt when being bullied but she wasn't shaped by it like Harry was.

The difference with the soul bond and the Veela bond was how it was formed.

The soul bond required bonding potential between two individuals. If two people who had such a link, had an intimate relationship for quite some time, the bond would form. On average this would form approximately seven years after marriage. Although the white pages in their mental library indicated that they had been obliviated, it seemed very unlikely that they had such an intimate relationship in the past. After all they were too young and lived miles apart from each other.

The Veela bond required a different initiation. A Veela can choose her life mate. If she chooses it and the mate accepts, the bond is formed. Based on an article of a 9 year old Veela girl and a 14 year old boy who bonded, after he saved her from drowning, it seemed that age had little to do with it.

Still, it was doubtful that they had a Veela bond. How could they. Hermione was a muggle-born and had brown hair while Veela typically had silver-blond hair. Still, despite the problems, it seemed more plausible as the soul bond.

This meant that they would have to look further, in more and more obscure books, to find what was going on. They hoped to be able to find the correct bond.

Hermione was reading a muggle book on mental health. It was one of the seventeen books she borrowed from the library.  
Harry didn't lend as much books as Hermione. From his four books he was currently reading through 'The Manipulation of Mind Magic with Mushrooms'. This book described how mushrooms could affect your occlumency barriers. Although it was interesting, it didn't really help in their particular situation.

While he was reading about the use of mushrooms in truth serums, he heard Hermione's panicked voice over their mental link.

 _~Oh my god.~_

 _~Hello Hermione, what's going on? You sound worried.~_

 _~I am worried.~_

 _~What happened?~_

 _~I just read a book on philosophy.~_ she started. _~It says "Some mental disorders may cause people to believe that they hear voices in their heads." How do I know if you are real?~_

 _~Of course I am real.~_ Harry protested.

 _~Your presence in my head feels real, but you could be something I made up. For all I know, I may have a mental disorder.~_

 _~Well, I doubt the writer knew about magic. I looked up some books on magical connections and Legilimency is not unheard of.~_ Harry reminded her with a grin. Although she could not see him, he was sure that the grin was mentally transferred.

 _~You're not helping.~_ she answered in an irritated mental voice. _~Believing in magic is also not considered to be a great signal of sanity.~_

 _~Anyhow, I need to know if you are real. I need to see some evidence with my own two eyes~_ She added.

 _~Shall I send you Hedwig?~_ Harry offered. _~By exchanging letters, we can verify that we are mentally communicating with a real person. If that is the case, we are sane.~_

 _~That will help a lot.~_ she said with a sigh.

A few minutes later, Harry wrote the strangest letter he had ever written. Nobody would understand this message except Hermione.

She insisted that she would randomly choose words from a dictionary. She would open the page on a random page and point to a random location. Both people would write the words she found on paper or parchment.

After the letter was finished, Harry walked to the owlery and called Hedwig. The beautiful white owl went down and greeted Harry.

Hi girl, Harry said.

The owl hooted.

He tied the letter onto the owl's leg and told her to deliver the letter. When he told her where the letter should be delivered, Harry had the feeling she looked at him with a face telling him: _~Silly human. Don't tell me how I should deliver a letter. I know that better than you.~_

 **-= Hermione Granger, 25 November 1991, morning =-**

Earlier today, Hermione walked out of her biology lesson. A familiar white owl sat on her hand. It had been a close call but it appeared that nobody had seen the letter the owl carried. Although, she wasn't sure about Chris. He did give her a strange look when leaving the classroom. But then again, this could also be caused by carrying an owl.

At first, she hadn't notices Hedwig ticking on the window with her beak. Some of the other students did notice.

Very soon, the class was in chaos. Someone had opened a window and Hedwig flew a couple of times through the room before landing on her desk.

Looking back, her excuse to leave was not a very good one. The teacher seemed to accept it, but she thought it was more due to the general feeling of surprise in the room.

She was very happy with the letter. It meant she wasn't insane. For most people the random words wouldn't seem logical, bus she knew better. She had already written a reply, with a photo of her family added to it. She had offered to write a few random words to Harry as well, but Harry didn't think it was necessary.

It was the first time she skipped a lesson. A bell signalled the break period. Now she had to ask what homework was due for the next lesson.

In the stream of students she saw Dave and a couple of his friends walking outside. They were discussing a game called 'Tunnels and Trolls'. She didn't know what kind of game it was and neither did she care. Knowing them, it was probably something far too geeky for her anyway.

The name reminded her of a very bad memory of a couple of days ago. After all, Harry's encounter with the troll could easily have killed him.

Next she spotted Charlotte. She asked her a lot about the owl that she left with. After a short time Hermione learned what assignments she needed to make before the next lesson. It wouldn't be too much work.

"Charlotte, did you see Angie coming outside?"

"No, I don't think so." she responded "but I am not sure."

"I'm going inside looking for her." Hermione told her friend "For all we know, that Dudley boy is troubling her again."

"Shall I come with you."

"No, I have an idea"

She walked up the five steps of the wide staircase to the entrance door and walked inside. She looked around at a couple of places and in the third room, she spotted the two people she was looking for. Dudley was standing intimidating over Angie who was sitting in a corner. Her hands were protecting her face.

"Please, don't" she begged.

"Well, you didn't complete my homework, so I think a punishment is in order."

He put his fist behind his back, preparing a punch.

"Dudley?" she asked "What do you think you're doing?"

"Oh, we're just having a bit of fun."

"A bit of fun?" she asked him. "Let me tell you something, your parents didn't seem to have told you. Hitting others is in general not considered having fun. It is called bullying."

"I don't bully Angie." he said.

Thinking about how Harry was treated, Hermione was actually unsure whether Dudley would know he was bullying someone with how the Dursley's treated Harry.

"Your parents may not really have told you what bullying means. After all, the whole Dursley family consists of bullies."

"Take that back!" the boy snarled.

"Why should I take the truth back. We both know what your family did to your cousin. Does Harry hunting ring a bell?"  
"Nobody will believe you. You have no evidence."

"I do and if it doesn't stop I will inform the authorities." Hermione responded.

The boy didn't catch her subtle meaning and started laughing. "The authorities? And here I thought you grew a backbone. Do you really think the teachers will listen this time? Or the police for that matter? No complaint ever turns into any consequence."

 _~Well, that is true.~_ Harry admitted. _~All complaints somehow got lost.~_

 _~Magic?~_ Hermione asked

 _~Not sure~_ Harry responded. _~I mean, there must be some spells to wipe memories, given what we found in that library.~_

 _~Well, we could bluff our way out.~_ Hermione responded

Just when Dudley seemed to think he won, Hermione gave her response.

"You just have to know where to complain." Hermione added. She stepped a step forward and said "I was thinking about other authorities, Mr Pig."

The last words were a bit risky, but in the hallway only Dudley could understand the reference. Everyone else would probably assume she would be talking about his fat appearance.

"What did you call me?" the boy asked with a slightly worried voice. He finally caught her meaning.

"I called you Mister Pig or did you forgot the gift Hagrid gave you?" Hermione asked, knowing fully well he would not have forgotten the plastic surgery that was required to remove the tail.

The boy began to stutter. "I don't know what you're talking about"

"I am sure you do. And if you don't stop, I will inform them." Hermione told the scared boy. "Maybe they'll give you a second gift."

The boy took a step backwards and muttered "Freak."

"Yeah" Hermione responded bluffing. If she was magical, she would have received a Hogwarts letter, but Dudley didn't need to know that. "If I were you, I would stop playing your hunting games or we will step in. And that also applies to your cousin."

"Please, don't." The boy begged her.

"Well, it is your choice." she said to the boy who was currently trying to get away as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Hermione, what was that about?" Angie asked her when the boy was out of sight.

"I knew something he didn't want others to know." She answered "By using that I may have solved bullying problem."

"I guess you aren't going to tell me anything else."

"Sorry." Hermione muttered. "I can't risk the information getting out."

"Thanks anyway."

Unbeknown to them, the conversation between Dudley and Hermione had been overheard. A boy, Chris was flabbergasted by the only logical conclusion he could think of. **(1)**

Was Hermione really involved with the mafia? Her conversation did seem to hint towards it. After all, what else could the 'other authority' mean?

The gifts seemed to be a kind of punishment. He had no idea what the punishments were but judging from the reaction of Dudley it was a nasty punishment.

He still had to figure out what was going on with the owl. After all, it did have a letter attached to his leg. Did they use this technique to avoid the cops?

He would inform his uncle. After all, the police was far better equipped to tackle these kind of problems than a teenage boy was.

 **Author Note:**

 **(1) I have written it first with the idea that Hermione wanted to communicate a message to Dudley. Then I realised that it could be misinterpreted. Stay tuned for more mis-interpretations. I really like the one I planned between Albus and Harry at the mirror of Negereb.**

 **Because Harry will not be at Hogwarts during Christmas, do you think it is more logical if he finds the mirror before or after the holiday?**

 **A guest pointed out that my story is a bit dark. I tried to rectify that a bit, by adding some references to hobbies in this chapter. Does that add something to the story?**

 **Nanettez: The bushy haired girl in Ravenclaw is Lisa Turpin. Her hair colour is black and I have not yet thought of a big role for her in the story. Suggestions are welcome though.**


	8. Y1: Regnarg Enoimreh dna Leinad, Amme

_Previous Chapters: Harry survived a troll. Ron went in the third floor corridor and Harry started to become friends with Fred and George. In chapter 3, Harry found out he was a Horcrux. Fred and George promised to look for information of them._

 **-= Harry Potter, 2 December 1991 =-**

A few weeks before the Christmas leave, harry was walking absentmindedly through the hallways when he spotted the twin walking a couple of meters in front of him.

He called their names and walked towards them.

When the boys turned around, he saw that the red-headed boys had unusual white faces.

"What's wrong? Is it Ron?" He asked thinking about the incident with the third floor and the unknown curses he took.

"No"

"It is …"

"Fred! Not here." his brother interrupted.

"Okay, follow us." Fred said.

As they walked to corridors where few students went, Harry's curiosity grew. Some of these paths were area's where he had never been before. Although, he had heard that some upper years would use the less traveled corridors for snogging, he doubted that was why the Weasley twins brought him here. At least he hoped that wasn't the case.

They arrived at a painting of a ship in the sea. One of the twins whispered a password before the painting moved away, revealing a hidden passage.

When they were safely in the passage and created a small light, the two redheads started to explain things.

"We looked for the clues the hat gave you …"

"… and we have found out what horcruxes are"

"Nice, it is good to know some information."

"Yeah, summoning charms can be useful." George commented.

"We Accio'd this book." one of the twins said while showing a book called 'Secrets of the darkest arts'.

"It contains the secret of Horcruxes"

"It is really … really … really … really dark." they said in their infamous twin speech.

"It is a method to cheat death."

"It requires someone to split their soul by killing an innocent person or something equally evil."

"This splits the soul in two parts. The part that accepts the act as natural and the part makes you try to make amends."

"The part of the soul that considers the act as evil, is stored in a container …"

"… which stops you from passing to the afterlife …"

"… leaving an immortal human on earth who thinks that those evil acts are perfectly natural."

"The Horcrux itself can posses others …"

"… which eventually is used as life force for a new body …"

"… destroying the soul of the victim."

"They are hard to destroy …"

"… with the only methods we found are …"

"… Basilisk venom, the most venomous poison in the world …"

"… Fiendfyre which destroys anything it touches …"

"… and a dementor's kiss, which is infamous for destroying souls."

"We believe, you may have found a Horcrux in your parents house …"

"… which soul was transferred to you …"

"… possessing you until you-know-who accidentally disabled it."

"Wow" harry said. "You mean that Voldemort actually saved me?" Harry said disbelieving. "That that green light killed whatever soul was inside me?"

"Well, the killing curse had to fight something. It didn't kill it but significantly weakened it." they said "For the rest, yes, you-know-who did save you, ironically."

"So, How can we remove that thing? I am not comfortable letting such a thing stay in my mind."

"We haven't found a safe way." The twins admitted "But it seems that finding and destroying the other horcruxes may make any method we could find in the future, safer. The binding between the Horcrux and this word will be weakened."

"Did you find anything about this Tom guy?"

"Yes and No" was answered by Fred. "The last person who checked out the book was Tom Marvolo Riddle. We have no idea who this person is but we want to look through the library for references after the vacation."

"I know it, in the vacation, you're going home and I have to stay here" Harry said. It wasn't fair that he could not decide where he would spend his holiday. There was no way he would be allowed to go to the Grangers, as much as he wanted to stay there. What was he going to say. "Excuse me, Professor McGonagall, I want to go to a muggle household which I have never gone before but trust me on this, it will be fine."

No that wouldn't be possible.

"No, we will stay at school during the vacation."

"At first our parents wanted to take us to visit our beloved brother Charlie …"

"… in Romania …"

"… but the plans got changed."

"Probably because of money …"

"… or rather the lack of it."

"Who is Charlie and how many siblings do you have?" Harry asked a bit curious about the Weasley family.

"Bill is the eldest. He is a curse breaker at Gringotts."

"Charlie, the second eldest works in a dragon reservoir …"

"… in Romania …"

"… which is a very dangerous job …"

"… as dragons tend to have a temper …"

"… almost as bad as our mum."

"You know our brothers Percy and Ron."

"At last there is our little sister Ginny."

 **-= Emma Granger, 20 December 1991, Afternoon =-**

She couldn't find a parking spot. Too many parents were here and too few parking spots. Luckily she had come somewhat earlier so she found half a dozen streets away a spot.

Now she walked to her daughter's school. Although she heard from her and the school it had gone well, in the last few months, she still remembered her daughter lying helpless in hospital. She absolutely didn't like that the doctors couldn't find anything.

Finally she arrived at the school and found a place where she could stand, waiting for her daughter. At the right side of her, there was a large fat man, that was most definitely overweight. He had thick dark hair with a large black mustache. For some reason, she didn't like the man.

At her left, there was a man who was most likely someone from the police. He wore a jacket with polished silver buttons. He didn't have his helmet on, though. This indicated that he was here but not for police business. He likely had a child here as well.

The first group of children that came out of the school. A fat boy went to the man to his right. You could easily see they were family, even though the fat boy had blond hair.

"Hi dad." he said.

"Hi Dudley. You told me a girl has been threatening you. Can you tell me who is it?"

"Sure, I'll tell you when I see her."

Emma, looked again to the gate. A new group of students arrived. She saw three girls happily chatting, one of them her Hermione when she heard "That is the girl who threatened me."

The overweight man stepped towards the three girls who seemed shocked. Emma ran towards her daughter as well.

"Which of you three is the little girl that threatened my son."

She thought she saw fear in her daughter's eye, but she was even more surprised when her child stepped forward. She took a deep breath and said in a low voice. "I told your son that if he didn't stop bullying, I would tell the … freaks what you kept in your cupboard under the stairs."

"Don't make demands, young lady. Those freaks still owe us thirty thousand pounds for taking care of him."

"Care? You call that care?" Hermione told him in a raised voice. She turned around and walked away anger radiating from her.

Many people, including the police officer, had looked with interest to the scene. Emma walked up to her daughter and walked with her to a slightly more private place.

When they found a park, she asked "Who were they and what is going on?"

Her daughter took a deep breath but her anger was still in her voice. "That was Vernon Dursley. His son Dudley started bullying Angie."

"So, did you inform any of the teachers?"

"No. Dudley is very good in finding the moments no teacher is present. It would have been my word against his."

"Ah, so you threatened him?"

"I guess so. I … found out about another case of child abuse and I told him that I would bring that to the light if he didn't stop bullying."

"Who was the other person that was bullied."

"His cousin, Harry Potter. They let him live in the cupboard under the stairs for almost ten years."

"You mentioned some kind of freaks. Who are they."

"Mum, Unfortunately I can't tell you that."

"Little girl, I am warning you. Saying these kinds of threads could get you in serious problems. Please tell me who the freaks are."

"Like I said, I can't tell you. It is a secret. What I can say is that the Dursleys started using the word. I have no problems with them but I needed to let them know what I knew."

"Hermione" Her mother started. "As you are keeping things from me, I will ground you for the first week of the vacation. If you tell me who the freaks are, we may stop your grounding as well."

"Yes mom", she said in a voice that made her lose hope that the girl would actually tell her what those freaks are.

 **-= Stanley Bates =-**

Stanley Bates was a simple police officer. He was quite surprised about the display as school earlier today. He was even more surprised when his son told him those two were the people he overheard.

In most cases, not much happened in his neighborhood. At least not much new stuff. Of course, he was quite busy and often had to work to late hours. But there were no strange cases, like you sometimes saw on TV.

Sometimes, people would come in and file a complaint about something very strange. Not that he believed that nonsense. A few months he had to send some old lady who claimed that her new teacups tried to eat her fingers. Really, sometimes you got some strange cases about someone who believed he or she saw some magic. Did these people really believe that they would buy this?

In other cases, people would create fantastic conclusions with big conspiracy theories when the actual explanation was something remarkably easy. The television shows really didn't help teaching what is plausible.

Before today, he had the feeling his latest 'anonymous' hint had been such a case. Usually he would have rejected this case. However, as his son gave him the hint, he would look into it. After all, he thought the boy would nag him a lot if he just ignored the clue.

In Chriss's fantasy, he had found a mafia organization. His son had heard two students, Hermione Granger and Dudley Dursley talking and found it very strange. Probably some terms that his son did not understand. According to his son, they mentioned some kind of secret authority and, with all his fantasy, thought it could only be a kind of mafia.

Now he heard those two discussing, he was considering whether it may actually be a kind of mafia.

 _He wrote in a small notebook:_

 _* What was in the cupboard? Is it drugs?_

 _* Who are the freaks? Is this a gang?_

 _* Why do the freaks owe the Dudley's money? Is it some kind of trade? 30.000 pounds._

 **-= Harry Potter, 27 December 1991, almost midnight =-**

It was late in the evening and Harry was exploring the castle. The freezing cold from the outside had been penetrating the walls and the wind made everyone require warming charms. Harry was glad that he could now cast spells such that he was not affected.

Yesterday, he had traveled with his favorite Weasley's. When he showed his present the twins went mad. They saw all kind of possibilities for pranks with an invisibility cloak. All of them were wild but some of them were wilder than others.

He was almost forced to agree exploring with them. Afterwards, he admitted that he enjoyed every minute of it. The most interesting thing was likely a mirror he saw. They had the idea that it might show the future.

After they went back, they made an agreement that he would share his cloak with them. In return they would share their map with him. The twins may have gotten the best part of the deal as they usually did a lot of pranks. However, those pranks were enjoyable and fun. Harry did gain something out of the deal as well. He now knew a lot more about the castle as before.

He was on his way to the mirror again. He opened the door and slipped towards the mirror. When he looked in, he saw the same reflection as yesterday. He stood there with Hermione in her arms. Behind them were Daniel with a big smile on his face and Emma who cried tears of happiness for them being together.

 _~You don't seem to get enough of that image.~_

 _~Nope. Like I told you yesterday, I love you and I would love to spend time together.~_ Yesterday he had been able to find words for the feeling he had for Hermione. Just for that, this artifact was priceless.

 _~So do I, and you know I already asked mum and dad if you could join them for the summer.~_

Harry took some time to study the mirror. After looking through some books, making some notes and not getting further with the mystery, he closed them and began sitting for the mirror.

Harry looked content at the image for a short time. She was really beautiful to watch.

"Back again Harry" he heard an old man say.

Harry turned around and saw Dumbledore standing in the doorpost. He walked a bit closer before continuing.

"I think that you, just before so many before you have discovered the delights of the mirror of Erised" Dumbledore said "I trust by now you realize what it does?"

Harry pained his brain but could not find the solution. "No sir, although I have been reading some books trying to figure it out. The twins came with the suggestion that it shows the future, but it seems somewhat off."

The headmaster gave him a hint "The happiest man on earth would look in the mirror and see only himself exactly as he is."

"It shows us what we want. What we really desire inside."  
"I'm impressed, Harry. It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest and most desperate desires of our heart." The headmaster continued. "You Harry, who has never known your family, you see them standing beside you."

Although he could have realized the headmaster talked about his biological parents, he didn't make the connection. He thought about Dan and Emma and nodded. Family was a good term to describe how he felt about them and he would very much like them to take him in.

"But remember this, harry. This mirror gives us neither knowledge or truth."

Harry disagreed internally. It did let them put words on how he felt about Hermione. That is certainly a form of knowledge and truth as well.

"Men has wasted away in front of it. Even gone mad. That is why, tomorrow, it will be moved to a new home. And I must ask you, not to be looking for it again. It does not do to dwell on dreams harry and forget to live."

The professor's last line triggered something in Harry's mind. He had to defend Hermione's honor. "I will do everything in my power to make it come true." Harry protested loudly. "It will be worth it."

"Harry, my boy, please." The headmaster begged. "What you ask is impossible. I trust you know that."

"IMPOSSIBLE? The planning has been made and we will be together next summer."

With that, Harry left the room, leaving a startled headmaster behind, totally unaware what the old man was thinking.

 **-= Albus Dumbledore =-**

~I failed Harry.~ Albus Dumbledore told himself. ~Due to his upbringing with the Dursley's, Harry is going down the dark path just like Tom all those years ago.~

The signs were clear. First of all, Harry went to Slytherin. He had been extra alert when that had happened. Though it produced plenty of light-sided wizards, it was a house that produced more dark wizards than the other combined.

The fact that all potters in the past were Gryffindors, meant that it was more significant that Harry went to Slytherin.

Now he saw yet another sign that Harry was on the path of becoming the dark lords equal in personality. He was trying to defeat death.

He did not believe that the boy would actually succeed with whatever ritual Harry thought he found. It was impossible to bring back people from the dead.

The problem was that there were countless rituals that could do something. Most of the rituals had a hidden cost without any true reward.

The original creator of the resurrection stone went mad and killed himself. Other methods had similar costs. To create inferius you need to fill it's body with dark energy. That energy needs to flow through your body, leaving scars in the process.

He couldn't accept a mentally scarred boy who lived. He had only a few years left to live and Harry was the boy who needed to lead the light side. He couldn't do that if he was corrupted with dark magic.

Unfortunately he didn't know what the boy would be trying to do. As the boy ignored his warning he needed other methods to stop the boy.

Snape could keep an eye at the boy. As his head of house, it was already his task. When asking his potions master he would need to take into account the subtle relationship between Harry and Severus.

This would be a good first step, but more would be needed. He needed a caring family and the Weasley's were simply the best candidate.

They had experience with children, were a light sided family and according to what Tessie Prewett told him a distant relative of Lily's grandmother. This meant that the wards would be transferred as well.

He would write the Weasley's as soon as they were back in the country. Too bad that they went to Romania.

 **Author Notes:**

 **Another Chapter but a chapter where I had difficulty deciding what to include and what not. I almost released a chapter with a Christmas at the burrows but a friend of mine pointed out that the plot-line for Albus trying to control Harry was going too fast. He had too little reason to believe Harry would go dark.**

 **As the mirror scene was already written, I reordered some scenes. I hope this gives more motivation for Albus's next actions. Next chapter will most likely include Snape's reaction to this. (Unless I reorder things again)**

 **Edit: Due to the review of Brian1972 I have chosen to update the text a bit of the latest chapter. I shouldn't have released a half-finished scene.**


	9. Y1: Potionmasters and Researchers

_Last chapters: The twins found out what Horcruxes are. Dumbledore concluded that Harry was turning evil after Harry told that he would go to the Grangers. Stanley Bates is finding more and more clues that Hermione and the Dursley's are in some kind of criminal network._

 **Note:** Based on the review of Brian1972 I updated the last scene of chapter 8. The story should be understandable without reading the update though.

 **-= Quinn, 28 December 1991, 2 minutes to 11 O'clock=-**

Quinn, the large Gargoyle was waiting for nothing in particular. It was boring but he had to proof that he, Quinn was the best Gargoyle guard on the British isles. Not that he had any idea how many gargoyles there were in the British isles, but that was beside the point.

From far, Quinn heard a slender man approach. The shoes made a soft tick that could be a few teachers which the most likely candidate being Severus Snape.

The gargoyle looked at him, and the black cloak and black hair looked like Severus Snape.

The rather dark man stopped in front of the statue revealing a distinct smell of unwashed hair. He definitely smelled like Severus Snape.

The castle magic revealed that his name was Severus Snape. He had the same dark signature on his left arm than Severus Snape usually had. The signature matched that of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Severus Snape was on the white list so in principle he would be given access.

The signature that appeared to be from Tom Marvolo Riddle was another issue. Even though it was a signature and not an actual soul, the white-list system would be used. However, he would have to check two white-lists. First the white-list for enchanters and then the white-list for checking whether people have access.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was not on the white-list for recognized enchanters. That list was relatively small since no person had been placed on in in the last seven hundred years. Tom Marvolo Riddle did appear on the white-list for people having access to the headmasters office. Therefore the enchantment was allowed and he did not need to dispel the magic in the dark signature on the left arm. Not that it would have been too difficult to do it.

He went to step two of the protocol and erupted a silencing field around them.

The man who was most likely Severus Snape uttered the word "Cheese Muffin".

As that was the current correct password, Quinn gently stepped aside.

 **-= Severus Snape =-**

"Come in" the headmaster called just before he wanted to open the door.

Severus Snape walked into the familiar office of the headmaster.

His eye met the phoenix who was busy picking his feathers. Each time it's head brushed against a feather, a shower of sparks came free. He observed the remarkable sight, careful not to get burned in the process. When properly collected phoenix sparks could be a valuable potion ingredient. In most cases, the phoenixes didn't care about this. It would be so much easier if the creatures would allow the sparks to be collected without being tricked. On the other hand, the ingredient would be vastly cheaper as well.

The bird didn't seem to like him. Not that he blamed the bird. He had dabbled a lot in dark magic and the phoenix seemed to sense it.

"Lemon Drop?" the headmaster offered him. Shouldn't the old man know by now that he didn't like sweets? "No thanks"

He hoped the headmaster would be clear in his intentions, this time. He still hadn't forgiven the old man for the time when he had ordered him to tell the Carrows the location of the Dudleys. The wards didn't work as the old man said they would work.

He asked three times if he was sure that the wards would hold the attacks of any death eater, and three times he heard that the attackers wouldn't have a chance.

How the old man could have made such a big mistake, he didn't know. Whether it was overconfidence, old age or just some missing information, He would try to find it out. It didn't matter either. The old man had failed and endangered Lily's last offspring in the process. He would not easily forgive him.

Not that the brat needed to know that. He had such a Gryffindor behaviour, much like his father. On the other hand, he didn't seem to have a natural talent for plotting. There was always the chance that a master-plotter would not be detected but he sometimes wondered if the hat had made a mistake.

Not that anyone would know it. He had strengthened his occlumency barriers in the last months and was sure he would sooner die from versivatium poisoning than to tell anything about any of this.

"You may be wondering why I summoned you."

"Yes" Snape said "Although I doubt it will be because Fawkes is giving sparks again." He had to focus on something irrelevant in case the headmaster would try to use Legilimency. His days as spy thought him that, it always seemed more natural in that way.

"Last night I found Harry sitting before the mirror of Erised. From the conversation we had I fear he is more like Voldemort than I thought. He is already willing to perform dark rituals."

"What kind of rituals does he plan to use?" Severus asked, mentally cursing the headmaster always keeping information behind. Of course, the cursing was done behind many barriers of occlumency.

"I do not know for sure, but I found the book 'Secrets of the darkest arts' missing. It focuses of Horcruxes and other ways to cheat death. None of the ones I remember would be useful for him."

Snape reflected on the words the headmaster just told him. He of course knew the title of the book, not that he ever read it. Why was such a dark book kept at Hogwarts? Horcruxes were evil artifacts that not only split the soul but corrupted it as well. When creating one, you split your soul, making you mad in the process. Other rituals were likely just as dangerous. What did the headmaster think when keeping that book in a school of children? Does he want to breed other dark wizards and witches? He knew of several Slytherins and a few Ravenclaws that would like to lay their hands on such a book.

"You think Harry has it?" It was not one of the Slytherins that he expected to have interest in such a book. The boy seemed to show little Slytherin tendencies. He sometimes wondered why the boy was sorted in his house. It was also a NEWT level book so the boy needed to do a lot of research before being able to complete any of the rituals in that book.

The headmaster nodded. Did he really not consider all the alternatives? Or did he have some information that Snape did not have. Given Albus's personality it was most likely the second answer.

"And what do you think he wants to do?"

Snape saw the hesitation in Dumbledore's speech before saying "I am not sure."

He was sure that the headmaster had an idea, but didn't want to say it. This surprised him a bit. The headmaster called him but he didn't want to share that piece. But he would figure it out in his own time. He just had to put the clues together.

"I guess you want me to keep an eye on him? Anything special I need to look for?"

"Yes. Harry may have gotten some clues what's behind the third floor corridor. I don't know if the stone is involved in his plans, but should you find anything that makes you suspicious, please inform me directly."

"Yes, some of the traps are quite deadly." Snape agreed. "Will that be all?"

"Yes and good luck, Severus."

While walking outside, Snape was sure that the headmaster didn't told everything to him. In fact he believed that he was deliberately keeping a key piece of information behind.

And when the headmaster would keep a piece of information behind it was usually to change the behavior in the person he was telling it to. And he did not want to be manipulated again. That meant he had to get over his memory a couple of times. Luckily he was a master occlumens.

The headmaster told that the boy wanted to use dark magic, but things were not always clearly black or white. Magic had many, many different shades of grey and different wizards perceived these shades differently.

Cheating death was a dark area of magic, but the clue of the Mirror of Erised told him it had to be connected by some kind of desire. Most people feared death but the mirror didn't show what fears you wanted to conquer. What did the mirror show?

Then it hit him.

The mirror must have showed his parents. That was why Dumbledore didn't want to tell him. The boy wanted to try to resurrect Lily.

The question was how the boy was planning to do it and whether he could succeed. Till now nobody ever succeeded in truly resurrecting dead people. However, there was not a single theory why it would be impossible. In addition, partial results have been obtained. This meant that people would continue trying, despite the great cost at themselves. He himself had been researching the subject whenever he had found some time. It was a tricky matter, but maybe not as impossible as some light-sided wizards would say.

The next question is where the boy would have gotten these ideas. Knowledge about anything related to dark rituals would be closely guarded.

Could it be that someone was tricking the boy. Many dark wizards could deceive people believing these kind of lies. And Quirrell already tried to get to the stone once. What if the DADA professor tricked Harry in helping him in exchange for his dead parents. (Not that the man could give that). Yes that was what the headmaster feared.

He needed to find out more about the boy's plan. He needed to get the boy to trust him. Given how he reacted the first months this would be no easy task.

He also needed to help the boy. It doesn't matter how the boy knew it but if the boy would attempt to get the stone, the boy would die. He knew what kind of mean tricks were in the tasks to trick any attacker. He for example had made a challenge with seven bottles of poison and a useless riddle. After all, one does not play fair when fighting against Voldemort.

Now that Lily's son could be trying to obtain the stone, he had to find a way to make sure the boy survived. The headmaster ordered everyone to make challenges where the obvious solution was trapped. His challenge for example was a simple riddle and seven deadly poisons. Solving the riddle would trick the user in drinking the poison. He would never forgive himself if he accidentally killed Lily's son, when the said son tried to resurrect his mother, whatever brat the boy was at the moment.

 **-= Stanley Bates, 6 January 1992 =-**

The old office he worked in, had collected some dust over the Christmas vacation. He had work to do.

He would do a routine check on these two families if only to satisfy his curiosity. The Grangers and the Dursley's would be checked before his lunch break.

He started his computer. It showed some text on the screen and made some simple beeps before showing the familiar command line:

 **C:/**

He started the database application and searched to the word 'Granger' in various categories.

No crimes involved in this family. Only two parking tickets. He looked in a few different tables, and found something on the Grangers. They had a business. They were dentists. An address and phone number were included.

On a piece of paper, he wrote the registration numbers. He could use that later to find out what amounts of money was going through that business. It could be a front business for some criminal organization.

Then he switched to the Dursley's expecting some similar dull list of incidents. He was however surprised by the content returned.

He found a list of five reports of suspected child abuse of a boy called Harry Potter. With renewed interest, he looked through the list of complains.

Three were filed by primary school teachers who were concerned. One was filed by a neighbour.

The first note had a note with the text: 'Teacher that filed complaint forgot about the crime', which was quite strange as later she filed another complaint.

The other notes had similar notes and were closed for questionable reasons. In one, it was mentioned that they would search the house with a warrant the next day. However, no mention was done what they found in the house. This was a breach in the protocol.

This was really becoming strange. What was going on at that house?

The last one was filed by a nine year old girl. He instantly recognised the name. It was Hermione Granger. Interesting: This confirmed there was some kind of connection between the two families even before she went to Smelting.

He opened the file and the content didn't make any sense at all. It had a very descriptive content what happened with the boy. Hermione quoted it in words that sounded almost like it had happened to herself, but was absolutely clear that it happened to the boy.

If this report was to be believed, he was called names, beaten, locked up in a closet under the stairs and being denied basic human rights like food. At one point it mentioned a broken leg without bringing the boy to a Hospital at all. If this was true, it would have been a wonder that the boy would have survived.

Like the other reports, not much was done with this report. It was however for a different reason. Their parents stated that Hermione never met the boy. When Hermione was questioned, she could not give an adequate explanation how they met. Some stuff about reading each other's mind, which was, frankly unbelievable.

Then it turned to a short investigation into the Granger family. After all, it would have been possible that the girl wanted to give a subtle hint that she was abused.

Another thing worried him more. Someone was keeping this quiet. There was no way five cases get closed like this without someone putting pressure on people.

He had to do this careful. If he asked the wrong questions to the wrong person, he could anger them. If it was an internal corruption, he may be fired. Worse, if it was a criminal gang, they may threaten his family. It would be best to not letting them, whoever they are, know he was investigating this. It would be slower, but he would figure it out.

 **-= Harry Potter, 16 January 1992 =-**

That bastard of a Snape kicked him out of the class, 20 minutes before the end of the lesson. Not that the man told him a good reason.

Being tired was not a good reason to send someone out of their class. This was especially true because the teachers scheduled the astronomy lesson yesterday evening.

After that he couldn't really fall asleep. His skin seemed to itch every time he turned himself.

When he came back, the beds were already cleaned. On his bed was a small package. He looked at it surprised. Who had send him the package?

No name except an accompanying letter addressed to 'Lily's son Harry' in a typewriters font.

That was a strange way to address a letter or a package. The writer clearly focused on his mother and not on his father. In addition, he didn't know of many wizards who used typewriters.

He opened the letter, looking whether it contained more information. It said in the same font:

 _Dear Harry_

 _Enclosed in the package you will find a vial. I do not know what your plan is. But it may lead you to the third floor corridor. I overheard some teachers about it. There are many traps in that area and I will not encourage you to go there. Should you find yourself there anyway and you survived the other traps, you could encounter a wall of fire. The vial in this package makes you immune to the flames. The vial is charmed to be unbreakable._

 _As a warning, I will also explain the trap. In the challenge you will see a table with seven bottles. A riddle tells what is in every vial but the true content of the vials is poison. To get passed the trap, you need to brew your own potion. I expect similar traps for the other challenges. Again, I discourage you going there._

 _For the safety of both of us, it is important that you tell nobody about this letter. Do not look the headmaster or your potions master in the eyes. They may use legilimancy. This is a self-destructing letter._

 _Kind regards,_

 _A friend._

While the letter burned up in flames, he thought what kind of strange text it was. It mentioned that he had a plan, of which he knew nothing. Why would he go to the corridor? He had not the faintest clue who had send him the letter **(1)** so he couldn't ask that person anything. In the package, he found a small vial of purple liquid.

He put the vial in his cloak and prepared for the next lesson.

 **-= Harry Potter, 25 March 1991 =-**

Harry and the twins were looking through old newspapers collected in Hogwarts. They had an amazing collection of daily prophets. It was tedious to look through them, but they hoped to find information on Tom in this way.

The first few months really took long. They read every article, looking for the name Riddle. As this resulted in nothing, they began to look for a faster way.

They found a couple of spells that could help them. The 'Verba Candentio' spell highlighted specific words or phrases in the newspaper. For example when saying 'Verba Candentio Riddle' it would light up all instances of the world 'Riddle', not much unlike someone went over it with a permanent marker. The biggest difference was that they were not permanent.

Although this already made the work a lot faster, a second spell cut the work even further. The 'Candentio Praesentia' spell indicated whether a newspaper had such highlighted words. If there were those words, the wand lit up in green light and if no words were present, the wand lit up in a red color.

It wasn't as much light as a lumos charm and to be honest harry was glad with it. The spells took a lot of toll on your magical reserve. It wasn't as if using a single spell used a lot of energy, but to successfully go through a year you had to cast over seven-hundred spells. Because of the huge amount of spellcasting, they limited the number of papers they went through to two months per day per person. In addition, they would only do this on the weekends.

In addition to the lumos charm, they did read the headings on the front page. After all, they had to take the papers anyway and maybe they would find some information on Riddle or some other juicy details on the wizarding world as well.

If they found an interesting article, they would copy it, by reading it aloud to a dictation quill. In that way, they could always find the articles back.

The three decided to use Verba Candentio to reveal the last name Riddle which gave remarkable few false positives. **(2)**

Today, they were reading through the articles in the spring-term of 1943. In the first few months, they didn't find any article matching the name. It wasn't until Fred (or George) picked up a newspaper from june and cast the spells that he found something. His wand lit up in a green color.

With renewed interest they started to look over the paper. Fred flipped pages until he found the article.

"Is the dictation quill ready?"

"Yes"

"Okay, I'll start"

 _14 June 1944_

 _Student died by half-giants spider._

 _Earlier today, Rubeus Hagrid was arrested by four aurors. He has been connected with the murder of Myrtle Warren. She was found yesterday, dead in a girl's lavatory at Hogwarts. The murder used to pose a mystery until a student provided the school with the necessary clue._

 _Slytherin prefect Tom Marvolo Riddle told us "Rubeus Hagrid is breeding dangerous creatures. I found out that he has a giant spider in his dorm which I told the Headmaster. I regret not informing the authorities earlier but I expected Hagrid to take my warnings seriously. He doesn't seem to understand that XXXXX creatures are dangerous. Looking back, I regret giving him time to correct the problem himself. I mean, if I told the teachers immediately, Myrtle would probably be alive right now."_

 _According to the aurors, the clue from Mr Riddle was vital in the arrest of Mr Hagrid._

 _We from the daily prophet regret that Mr Riddle didn't tell us sooner, but want to thank him anyway. Thanks to his work, a murderer was found and Hogwarts will likely stay open next year._

"Wow, that is a shocking article." Harry answered truthfully "Never knew that Hagrid had been involved in a murder."

"Neither did we." the twins said. "The correct term though is manslaughter."

"What?" Harry asked.

"It is only Murder if you intend to kill someone." George told him "Manslaughter is when you cause someone else's death without intending it."

"Still, Hagrid bringing in a dangerous spider to Hogwarts." Harry started

"Is exactly something Hagrid would do." The twins completed for him.

"But?"

"Well, you told us about Fluffy. Let's say, this is not the first pet of Hagrid we have experience with, unfortunately."

"I wonder why Hagrid is currently a member of the staff of Hogwarts. After all, if Hagrid was really guilty of manslaughter, how could he be here? Wouldn't he form a danger to the students?"

"I guess it will have something to do with Albus Dumbledore. He allows the strangest people in his staff." the twins said "I mean, a ghost for History of magic. He is so boring."

"Well, he may be boring" Harry argued "but Binns knows what he is talking about. I doubt you will find someone else with literally hundreds of years of experience"

"Well, maybe Hagrid has something else where he is useful for. I mean, there are dangerous creatures in the forbidden forest."

"And how do you two know that?"

"Trade secret" they said in union.

With a feeling that he missed something, Harry read through the article again and found what he was looking for.

"The article says that Tom was a Slytherin student and became a prefect." Harry said. "Is Riddle a pureblood name?"

"Not that I know. Why?"

"Well, from what I have heard, it is difficult for a halfblood to get status in my house." Harry said. "Still, Tom succeeded in it. That means he must be really special in some ways."

"I guess so." The twins said.

"Let's look further." Harry said "Maybe we can find another article today."

Indeed, ten minutes later, Harry discovered another article.

"I found one." He said in a slightly harder voice than he meant. "Is the quill ready?"

"Yeah"

 _13 July 1944_

 _Morfin Gaunt attacks muggle family._

 _Yesterday evening, in Little Hangleton, Morfin Gaunt was arrested for using the killing curse on a muggle family. Three people were killed._

 _This was not the first time, Mr Gaunt attacked the muggle family. He and his late father had spend time in Azkaban before for attacking the same family._

 _Together with the information from the Priori Incantato spell, this was sufficient evidence for the aurors to arrest him. Under versivatium he told them that he attacked the Riddle family for what they had done to his sister. Tom Riddle and Merope Gaunt were a married couple. He left her, despite being bound to her by marriage. Merope Gaunt was died, five months after the event._

 _According to some muggles, from the same village, the Riddle family was an awful family and will not be missed._

"Strange article." George commented.

"Very strange indeed." Fred added to his brother so comment.

"So Tom killed Merope and Morfin killed Tom and his family out of revenge?" Harry concluded.

"The article doesn't say that."

"It makes the reader conclude that Tom killed Gaunt …"

"… without literally telling the reader …"

"… which most likely means they didn't have enough evidence to link Tom to the death of Merope …"

"… and wanted to avoid any claims of libel."

"And, this is the end of our search for Tom Riddle?" Harry concluded. "Both Tom, his parents and Morfin is dead."

"I have the feeling there is more going on."

"Lets look in the library as well. From the books he borrowed, we may find a better image what kind of character Tom Riddle was."

"Is." Harry corrected "We already know that Tom didn't really die that day."

 **Author Notes:**

 **(1): I don't know how many of you have guesses it, but the letter is written by Severus Snape. He did add a few lies in the letter to avoid being detected by Albus Dumbledore. After all, a double-spy like Snape picked up some tricks of the trade.**

 **(2): The amount of false positives is so low because the magic is intent based. The intent is to look for the surname Riddle, not to look for the noun, riddle.**

 **I added a poll to give your opinion who Harry's guardians should become. There are several plots going on that may change the guardianship of Harry. Depending on the order of events it can play out in wildly different ways. Although I have my plans how it plays out, I would like to know if the community has a vastly different favorites.**


	10. Y1: Ashes to Ashes

_Last chapters: Dumbledore reading the signs wrong. Snape gave Harry a potion but tricked him believing he was a student. Harry has learned some of Tom Riddle's background. Stanley bates is finding more clues._

 **-= Harry Potter, 25 May 1992, Late in the evening =-**

It was late at night and curfew had past almost an hour. Even some teachers had gone to bed. On a night like this, Harry, and the twins were 'up to no good'.

The newspapers didn't have enough information what kind of Horcruxes Tom made. In the last month they have listed books that Tom Riddle borrowed. You just had to check the first page with the list of students that had borrowed it.

They made some interesting discoveries. The man clearly had an interest in snakes.

However, all books they checked till now, were a bit mundane. They wanted to know whether some books, in the restricted section, were borrowed by Tom Riddle as well. That would show his true interests.

As none of them had completed their OWL's they were not allowed in without a permission slip from one of the teachers. As they didn't think they would get the said permission slip, they had to do it in different ways. The plan would be to sneak into the restricted section of the library and find out what books were borrowed by mister Riddle. Even knowing only the titles would help them finding out what kind of interest the boy had. This in return could help them finding the horcruxes.

That was why they would be going to the library after curfew. While the stars shone through the windows, the three of them sneaked to the library.

Finally they arrived at the door.

"Alohomora" Fred whispered, or was it George. The door flung open.

Harry followed the twins inside the library. There were loads of bookcases but they walked directly towards the restricted section.

One of the twins blocked Harry and told him "Harry, find a dark corner and watch the map for names."

"I can help."

"Someone needs to look at the map and we know a little bit more about magical traps than you. So it makes sense that we would look through the books."

Harry didn't like it but he had to agree with the twins opinion. He found a partially hidden place between some bookcases, took a chair and looked at the maps the twins gave him.

He didn't need to activate the map. It already showed most rooms in Hogwarts. All public hallways were on the map. All classrooms and all corridors. The toilets and the broom closets.

But that was not the most amazing thing of the map. It showed where all people that were in hogwarts.

With a castle that large, it couldn't fit on a piece of parchment. The makers had solved this problem by only showing a section at the same time.

You could call for the index and choose the section you wanted from a list of items by pointing your wand at it. Many of them had cryptic names like 'Below the Willow' or 'Padfoot give us some privacy.' but most of them were quite clear.

Of some locations, he had no idea why they were mapped. Who needed a map of 'the sky above Hogwarts.'

It was very ingeniously made although when testing Harry did seem to find some limitations.

The first limitation he found when looking at the Slytherin common room. It wasn't there. Near the entrance was a marking with "? Slytherin House ?" Which was only a couple of meters off.

Most likely because the makers of this map didn't belong in the house and therefore they didn't find the information to map it. He didn't know the other common rooms but heard from the twins that it was near the painting of the fat lady. Indeed, when he looked there, the common room was visible. The only dorm it showed was the seventh years boys dorm with one bed empty.

Did that show the marauders were Gryffindor males? Most probably, but when you hear enough Slytherin plots you will start doubting anything.

He quickly took a look at their corridor. It showed that still nobody was nearby. He could look at other places again. He looked, a bit bored, over the list of locations.

To fill his time, he began to look at the cryptic names.

The map named 'Below the willow' was not interesting at all. It just showed one path with nobody in it. Disappointed he looked at the other cryptic name.

While wondering who or what Padfoot was and what he was not allowed to look at, his curiosity won. He activated the name and, harry saw the astronomy tower. Three circles showed three floors. At the third floor, there were two students. Probably prefects on patrol, Harry thought. Nobody else is out at this time.

He didn't recognize the names but he was quite certain that it was a male and a female. This confirmed his suspicion that they were prefects as they always patrolled in pairs.

Why did they just walk in a brooms closet? Harry asked himself. The door was most definitely closed.

A text appeared near the two students in pink.

Looking at the text he saw it was a description of what the two students were doing.

"Kissing"

The twins didn't tell him that the map had such a feature. This was most definitely not two prefect on patrol. Maybe they were prefects but they were definitely not patrolling. Then he saw that the pink text changed into.

"Snogging."

What is the difference? Harry thought to himself. It is both kissing.

The descriptions turned more and more dirty in the next couple of minutes. Judging from the text changes, it was certainly getting more intimate up there. He was disgusted by some of the activities described. He chose to give them some privacy and switched back to the corridor in front of the library.

To his shock, there was a dot moving nearby. He looked at the small letters and deciphered the name. 'Minerva McGonagall' would be closing in. Harry quickly entered the forbidden section and nudged Fred and George to go while saying the words "mischief managed". It wouldn't do to let the transfiguration professor know about the magical map.

They went with the three of them under the cloak and walked out of the library. While invisible it was difficult for them to walk really fast. You had to be careful not to step on each others toes and that greatly slowed the students down.

A brown cat appeared at the other side of the corner. He knew he had seen that cat before but couldn't remember where he had seen the cat. It was certainly not Nr Norris.

The cat turned her head and looked straight at them, sniffing the air from their general direction.

Great, Harry thought, cats have a very good smell and the cloak only blocks sight.

The cat walked towards them and with the slow movement the three of them were making, the cat was certainly faster. It walked close to them and then sat down. It started licking it's fur. When they had moved a couple of meters away from the cat again, the stupid beast walked closer again.

The cat seemed to enjoy herself. Not that the three boys shared this enjoyment. They became rather frustrated.

After a few corridors, the cat did something new that it surprised the three of them. In a fraction of a second multiple things seemed to happen simultaneously that they didn't register everything.

The cat jumped towards them. The claw of the cat pulled the cloak. The pull was stronger than usual. Harry lost footage and stumbled over.

In front of him were some woman legs. When looking up, he saw professor McGonagall standing with his cloak in her hand.

"Mr Potter, Mr Weasley and Mr Weasley I am disappointed in you three. Surely by now you know the opening hours of the library so tell me what kind of mischief you three were doing."

"We are sorry." The Weasley twins said in union.

"I am not sure whether I believe that." The transfiguration professor said.

The Weasley twins were getting in problems because of him. He had to do something.

"It is my fault." Harry said. "I have asked the twins to help me with …" Damn he should have planned this better.

"And what kind of mystery should that be?" The professor asked obviously doubting what he just said.

"… researching the sorting hat." Harry said. "We were researching why the hat shouted Slytherin when it was held on my head."

Strictly speaking, it was even true what he said. Still, the professor didn't seem to believe him.

"And you are doing that in the middle of the night?"

"Yes."

"Empty your pockets." The professor told the three students. Harry was very glad that he disabled the map as it was now only a blank piece of parchment.

The twins took a piece of parchment out of their pockets as well. Unfortunately this had text written on them. She read it all aloud.

 **Books**

' _Efficient usage of living sacrifices in rituals' By Erica Goyle._

' _A theoretical guide to servitude contracts' By Scorpius Black._

"That is a rather dark list of books" The professor concluded dryly. "Did you search the library for the darkest books? Did you write these so you can steal them after our discussion?"

Not being able to find an answer, the three of them were simply quiet.

"You will each lose 50 points and serve detention next Saturday evening at Hagrid."

Harry's courage sank to his fee. His house would shun him again, this time for the loss in points. With this loss, everyone would blame him if they would lose from Ravenclaw.

Just when Harry had the idea she couldn't make it worse, she told him "I will confiscate this cloak."

"Please give it back." Harry begged "It is a family heirloom from my father."

"You should have thought about that before you start sneaking around Hogwarts." The transfiguration professor told him. After a dramatic pause, she continued "However, I will only keep it till the summer vacation."

She turned to the twins again. "I will contact the headmaster and your parents and tell them about this incident. I am really disappointed in you three. Your interest in the dark arts is not healthy."

* * *

 **-= Fred and George Weasley, 26 May 1992, Early in the morning =-**

It was breakfast time and therefore the four house tables were full of students. Despite being a bit tired, Fred and George were sitting on the Gryffindor Table. Sneaking through the castle at night was a bit tiresome.

They were completely woken up when they saw their parents enter the castle accompanied by their head of house. What were they doing here? Did their head of house contacted them.

The few looks at them while three adults were in a conversation seemed to indicate that they were indeed here for them.

Fred was trying to hide his nerves while George gave some prank items to Lee Jordan. It wouldn't do to let them be caught by their parents as well.

After what seemed to be a too short conversation, the three walked over to them.

Knowing Molly, they expected a Howler but this was far worse. They probably had to defend their actions against their mum. Although they honestly didn't do anything wrong, they had to keep the secret of the Horcrux.

Harry would be in too much problems, if the world knew. Although Harry's reputation may protect him, that Riddle guy seemed to be very dark. If harry kept him alive, the experts may require him to do unsafe actions to remove that thing. It was better to research the thing and hire the specialist themselves.

Unfortunately, they didn't really have another excuse why they had made that list of books.

When their mother walked closer, the saw them and bellowed in a voice that only Molly could do. "FRED AND GEORGE WEASLEY! How dare you read those books? We are absolutely disgusted!"

They figuratively sank through the floor when hearing that.

The other students looked at their direction. All hope of a quiet breakfast was gone.

Luckily Professor McGonagall interrupted their mum and asked. "Mr and Mrs Weasley, We are interrupting a lot of students breakfast. Do you mind continuing this discussion on my office?"

The other Gryffindors visibly relaxed when hearing that. Fred and George, though, were not relaxed at all.

A couple of minutes later they were in the transfiguration professor's office. It was a small office with some papers and a small portrait on the desk. There was one bookcase filled with paperwork. Folders were marked with markings like 'Transfiguration Exams 1983 Year 3' and 'Prefect Punishments 1987'.

"Professor McGonagall, can you tell us what happened?" Arthur said diplomatically.

"I caught your sons Fred and George visiting the restricted section of the library with Harry Potter, in the middle of the night."

"Fred, George, what were you doing in the library?"

"Well. Harry wanted to find out why the hat shouted Slytherin. We helped him research that and at one point we suggested sneaking in the library."

"And what did you research in the library?"

"Making a list of books, in the hope to find out more about, Tom Riddle, the wizard who made the hat sort Harry in Slytherin."

"So you don't trust the hats decision, despite the boys taste of dark books." Molly shouted.

Fred quickly answered "We don't think Harry is going dark for a couple of reasons."

"First of all, you told us never to trust anything that thinks for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain. This means that we should not blindly trust on the hats opinion."

A small smile appeared at their father's face while their mother didn't really calm down.

"Second, we have reason to believe Harry has been misplaced by some … kind of … curse. We are currently looking at clues how the curse can be destroyed."

"Third, making the list of the books in the library was research on Tom Riddle."

"And who may that be?"

"His full name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. We don't know a lot about him but what we do know isn't very good. Based on the spells we know he cast, he is some kind of mad dark wizard who killed multiple people."

"So, you three were getting information about a dark wizard who was probably a crazy Death Eater."

"Yes and no. We were getting information on a dark wizard, but it seems unlikely that he would have joined you-know-who."

"So you think that two third year students and a first year student could stop a dark wizard?" their father asked in a serious tone.

"Now you say it like that it sounds stupid …"

"… but that is what we were trying."

"I am glad you two aren't turning dark as the professor told me, but I find both of you very irresponsible." his father told them. "Fighting dark wizards could get you killed. Because of this I retract the Hogsmeade permission slip."

Oh shit. How would they get the dung-bombs now the twins thought at the same time.

The man directed his attention to their head of house. "Professor, can you verify the story of the twins?"

"Well, I can check whether the books were indeed borrowed by Tom Riddle."

"Thanks in advance."

* * *

 **-= Stanley Bates, 28 May 1992, morning =-**

The last few months, the Granger, Dursley case had been nagging him. The facts didn't add up but clearly something was going on. Incidents were closed without good reason. If there was a reason, it was not documented, like it should be documented.

Childcare authorities should have been informed when four people complained about the abuse of a child, whatever was found. Yet, it never happened. As far as he knew, the boy was not enrolled at any school. This was strange but not illegal as people had the option to home-school children. With the child-abuse and the fact that his cousin did attend school, it gave him creeps though.

Certain records were missing of the boy. How could there not be a dental record? Not a single visit to the hospital?

It should have gotten to light quite some time ago. There was only one explanation. Someone was keeping things quiet. This meant that there was probably someone inside the police working with these criminals. Loads of money could corrupt anyone. The movies always said that every man had his price, although he didn't believe he himself would take any bribe.

He could be wrong but he suspected his boss, Roland Akers, to take bribes in exchange for closing the case. He was high enough in the chain of command and he heard rumors that he had some secret notes that nobody else was allowed to read.

If there was one thing he hated was corruption. Bribes destroyed societies. Taking care of this corruption would be the right thing to do even though it would be difficult and that it could cost it his job.

He still had to do it the smart way. Running up and demanding to his boss to see the notes, would be counter-productive. He would be on the street within a day, so to speak.

That was why he, on this christian holiday that his boss didn't work, would search through Roland whole office for clues.

* * *

 **-= Stanley Bates, 28 May 1992, evening =-**

He had been wrong about his boss.

He didn't find a single clue that bribes took place in the Granger and Dursley case. The notes were real. Roland appeared to have worked on a strange case, ten years ago. Somehow whole families have died of a heart attacks, or so the medical records would claim. His boss had written his findings and speculation in a carefully hidden notebook.

If that was the case, why were no researchers looking for a disease? There was certainly more going on.

The speculation of his boss went far and even had some references to Nazi Germany where medical records were manipulated to be called heart attacks. He was unsure what was going on and didn't really know if he really wanted to know it either.

He had copied the list of people who died of the mysterious circumstances after he saw two names, that stuck out.

 _James Potter and Lily Potter died of a heart attack on 3 November 1980._ **(1)**

 _Their son Harry James Potter survived because he was adopted one day earlier. What the hell is going on?_

That name was worth the whole day of researching and he really agreed with the statement 'what the hell is going on?'

 **-= Harry Potter, 30 May 1992, Late in the evening =-**

Harry, Fred and George were escorted to Hagrid's hut by Professor McGonagall. It was around eight O'clock in the evening and sun had already set. The night sky agreed with their astronomy tables, that it would soon be new moon. The forest at their left was really, really dark. Even during the day, little light penetrated the roof of leaves.

It took too short before they arrived at a wooden hut. Near the door were a few crates with rats.

When the door opened, the large man walked outside and gave the three boys a gentle smile. Even with the dark light, Harry could see the sweat on his face.

Harry smiled back. He still remembered his first birthday cake and the wonders the man had shown him in Diagon Alley afterwards. He could not believe, in all conscious that this man would deliberately hurt a student.

The transfiguration professor greeted the man. "I have the students here. Take care of them."

"Good." the huge man said keeping his smile on the children.

The huge man, which in Harry's opinion was too kind to kill any student, turned his attention to him and the twins. "We will have some fun tonight. We are going in the forest finding out what is happening to the unicorns."

"You mean the forbidden forest?" Harry asked thinking about the dangers he heard from the forest. Combined with the articles he read about Myrtle Warren, he had the feeling the large man was underestimating the danger of the forest.

"Wicked" one of the twins said.

The professor interrupted the conversation, clearly not happy about Hagrid's plan. "You three, you are here for a punishment, not for pranking. You are to stick closely with Hagrid, follow his orders and not wander around unsupervised."

"I was planning to split up." the half-giant told her.

"Rubeus Hagrid" she shouted. "You shall not split up the students you are responsible for. There are creatures in the forest that are quite dangerous for those who are smaller than you. Understood?"

"But we will be faster if …" Hagrid started.

"NO." she shouted and added to the three boys "If Hagrid asks any of you three to split up, or to do anything that is dangerous, you are to ignore his orders and report to me afterwards. I will not allow him to put you in danger."

* * *

 **-= Harry Potter, A few hours later =-**

The air was filled with ash. The heat was radiating around them. The orange light was making their shadows dance. They had to get away. It was dangerous here.

Between the smoky clouds they made their way. The uneven footing made it difficult to run, but at least they could try. They could almost not stand the heat. It was getting warmer by the minute, or did they imagine that? How long did they have to walk to find somewhere they would be safe? Were they going in the right directions? Anywhere from the fire was a right direction. Where were the others? He had lost Fred and George in all the chaos. Harry didn't know where they were. He could only hope they would find a safe path. Just like he could only hope that he would use a safe path.

He was not the only one that hoped that. The whole forest was awake and with the fire everyone tried to flee. Spiders, much larger that he knew from his cupboard, were crawling over the ground trying to get away from the heat. He heard horse like creatures running. Probably the centaurs.

He didn't know how many steps he took until he found some safety. In front he could not see trees so he ran into the open space.

Suddenly, his foot hit some cold liquid stuff. He looked down, half expecting to have stepped in a large pool of unicorn blood. Seeing it was transparent he slowly realized that it was a small lake.

After a quick decision, he stepped further in some water and intuitively he waded deeper. He realised, this was the lake that was in the forbidden forest. It was smaller than the black lake but large enough to keep them safe from the fire.

He hoped that the others would also find water. Then he realized, he could help them.

He took a deep breath that tasted like ash and shouted "FRED, GEORGE, HAGRID, HERE IS WATER."

From far he heard a loud voice "WHERE?". The voice could be from anyone, but was probably from Hagrid.

"HERE!" Harry shouted and started waving, in the hope someone would spot him. This happened and soon he was joined by a half-giant and one of the redheads.

"Thanks Harry, you may have saved my life" They said out of breath. "That is a hell of a fire."

After a short pause, george asked "Have you seen Fred?"

"I'm sorry but no." he told George. "Shall we shout for him?"

Together they shouted out "FRED. WHERE ARE YOU?"

Hagrid added "ARAGOG, WHERE ARE YOU?" to that statement. Harry briefly wondered who or what aragog was but he was more worried by the fact that Fred didn't reply. If he would have been close, he should have been able to hear them.

"We need to search for my brother." George insisted in a pleading and slightly panicked voice. He couldn't imagine what George was going through but it was likely horrible. Knowing that your brother was in danger but unable to do anything. He was looking for desperate methods, that may get him killed as well.

Harry was not against looking for Fred but charging into the forest would be madness.

"We need a plan." Harry answered "I don't think running blind in the forest is an option. Do you know any useful spells?"

"Thanks, good idea." Hagrid told Harry "There is the Sonoros spell but I don't have a wand."

"No problem" george said before waving his wand with the Sonoros spell. With his enhanced voice he shouted like he had never shouted before. " **FRED? WHERE ARE YOU?** "

Still no response was heard.

 _~Well, either the boy is too far away, or he is unable to answer.~_ Harry thought hoping it was the first but fearing it was the second. _~We need a way to find him~_

Hermione, who was currently awake at her bed, was thinking about it as well. Given the bond, she couldn't really sleep that well when Harry was awake and visa versa. With adrenaline pouring through Harry's body, like it was doing now, it was really impossible.

 _~Try tracking charms.~_ she suggested.

"Could you use a tracking charm?" Harry asked the third-year student.

"No, it requires Fred's blood." he told Harry.

For a moment, the two bonded children thought about it they got the same inspiration at the same time.

"I have an idea but I am not sure if it will work." Harry said.

 **Author Notes:**

 **Sorry to write a cliffhanger. Or in fact I am not sorry about it at all. Will Fred survive the blazing heat of the fire? What started the fire in the first place?**

 **(1): The Potters are registered that they died at 3 November because the ministry of magic was in chaos and nobody thought of informing the muggle authorities in time. And no, that is not the only mistake the MoM made.**

 **Unfortunately I found that I am writing slower than that I am posting chapters. That is why I am considering a different posting schedule. The next chapter will be posted in two weeks, but afterwards, I may do something different. Made a poll for that as well.  
**


	11. Y1: Dust to Dust

_Last chapters: Harry, Fred and George tried to find more information on Tom Riddle, a man who turned Harry Potter in one of his horcruxes. In their search, they went to the restricted section of the library but Professor McGonagall caught them. As punishment they had to help Hagrid in finding out what was killing the unicorns._

 _Something set the forest on fire. George Hagrid and Harry found safety by a lake. Fred is still in the burning forest but to find them, they need some blood for the tracking charm._

 **-= Lucius Malfoy, 30 May 1992, Almost midnight =-**

Lucius was sitting at his desk, working on his financial administration. It was a boring task but one that had to be done regularly. Although the goblins would collect the rent for him, he had to allocate funds for reparations to make sure that his fourteen houses were in a good state. He also needed to evaluate the rent yearly. By law this was only allowed at the first of July, but he had to inform his tenants a month before.

He was interrupted with the important task when an owl flew in. He looked at the owl and quickly saw that it came from Hogwarts. The letter however was not signed with the Hogwarts seal. In fact there was no seal at all.

The conclusion was simple but also not very useful. Someone used an owl from the owl wing to send him a letter.

Given that there were at least a hundred people with access to the owlery, he had to be careful. He doubted most first and second years knew any dangerous curses, but the upper years could cause a bit of damage. Therefore, he checked the magical aura's whether there were any curses on the letter.

After casting a few charms, he found one spell on the letter. Not a spell which he would expect though. The font scrambling spell would make it impossible to connect the handwriting to a person.

What kind of fool did that? The only reason to scramble your handwriting is to be anonymous, but the spell itself would leave a magical signature. With a bit of work that could be connected to the caster. So much for anonymity.

He opened the letter and read

 _Dear Lucius_

The person who wrote this didn't use his titles or even his surname. That was very informal and showed an immense lack of respect.

 _As you may have heard from your son, the groundskeeper Rubeus Hagrid is illegally breeding a dragon. He is With your position in the Wizengamot I would like you to put charges against him and, if possible, Dumbledore. The_ _rumors_ _should come out, on the night between 30 and 31 of May._

He indeed did get a letter from his son a few days ago. Knowing the dirty secrets of potential opponents was very useful. He read further to find out what the writer would offer him.

 _To make your case stronger, Rubeus Hagrid had been charged for the murder of Myrtle Warren on 14 June 1944. The murder weapon was an Acromantula that he had as a pet. Dumbledore's word and some inconsistencies in the story got him out of prison that time._

 _I have included reference materials for both the case of the Acromantula and the Dragon._

That was interesting and would indeed make the case stronger but the man wasn't offering anything yet.

 _Don't disappoint me._

What? There has been no offerings at all. It was almost like he was ordering him, Lucius Malfoy, head of the Ancient and Noble house of Malfoy. This man clearly knew nothing about politics.

 _Your Master_

 _PS: If you have any doubt, check whether the signature on this letter matches that of the diary._

Oh shit. This wasn't the amateur he made him out. This was Voldemort despite that the man should have been dead.

He didn't really need to check the signature to verify the claim, but would do that in any case. He had told nobody of the diary and it was unlikely that the dark lord told someone before he died. Still, spending his time verifying the signature could help ordering his mind.

He really needed to think what he should do. The history of the death eaters was a violent one and one that had cost him a lot of his money. Not that he couldn't miss it, but he gained little in return for his services.

When his father was young, they weren't as violent. From as far as he could tell, Voldemort created a student group called the Knights of Walpurgis that strived for a complete separation of the wizarding and muggle world. They tried to achieve this in a mostly political fight.

Somehow, the leader changed and became more violent. The man delved into contract magic. At first the contracts only enforced secrecy but they slowly became more and more demanding.

The conditions in breaking the contracts were not favorable at all.

When his father indoctrinated him, the death eaters were already a group of murdering and raping terrorists. Not that he saw it at that time.

Although some of the activities had been fun, he was a professional politician now. If he would be caught in such a plot, he could end up dead and his house could be ruined. In addition he would probably be tortured several times a week.

Not something to look forward to.

On the other side, if he would defy Voldemort, he would take his revenge. And that monster could be very creative. Given what he knew, the monster wouldn't just take revenge on him. No, his whole family would be begging for death.

He could go to Dumbledore and ask for his protection. His old friend Severus got the man's protection but he didn't know how far it would extend. Would Severus survive Voldemort's punishment when he was back. He didn't know.

He wasn't sure how that would play out, if he would go to Hogwarts. First of all, there wasn't really anything Albus wanted of him. He had no real new information like Severus used to have. Sure he could give some names, but all of his 'friends' already escaped justice so those names weren't valuable either.

The second problem was more troublesome. Since the letter had been send from Hogwarts it meant that the school wasn't safe. The dark lord would be there and probably hidden, some way or another. If he would go there, he had the possibility to encounter his master. No that wouldn't be an option.

That left as only option to fulfill the dark lord's wishes even though he would hate to get into those plots again.

 **-= Harry Potter =-**

"So, we can't use a tracking charm because we don't have Fred's blood."

"True."

"And you are Fred's twin brother."

"Yes, how long did it take you to figure that out?"

"And twin have the same DNA." **(1)**

"What is Dee-en-ay?" George asked "Whatever it is, I don't think we have that."

"It is in your blood, just like everyone." Harry explained in simplified terms. "It is what muggles use to identify people based on their blood."

"They can do that?"

"Yes, they read out the information in for example the blood, and see if it matches. My guess is that the tracking charm may also work with DNA."

"Are you sure?" George asked while taking his potion knife. The redhead seemed unsure whether he should cast the spell.

"Nope, but it is our best chance." Harry said.

George closed his eyes while he pierced his knife in the top of his finger. Harry could see the pain in his eyes when the knife touched the skin. The boy led three drops fall from the new wound on a small stone. After muttering an incantation, two straight lines of silver light appeared. Both lines started at the stone with the drops of blood. One line ended at George's heart. The other line, which was from Fred, pointed towards a part of the forest that was not completely divulged by flames. The pointing charm seemed to work and Fred seemed to be in the forest.

"Here we go" George shouted with new courage, while walking out of the water to follow the line. Harry and Hagrid quickly followed him wondering how far away Fred was. The only thing they had was a line, but they didn't know the distance.

Smoke and ash pained their vision as the maneuvered them through the bushes that were on fire.

Their wet clothing soon dried again in the heat of the flames, which was a pity as the wet clothing seemed to protect them a little bit. However, now they knew wet clothing could make the travel a bit more bearable. With the frequent usage of the water conjuration charm cast by George, they could at least bear the heat a little bit.

After maybe twenty meters, they found him. Between a burning log and some flaming bushes lay the redhead. Half of his hair was gone presumably to the same fire that was now playing with his robes. The left side of his face was covered in an ugly red wound. Harry had difficulty looking at the unconscious boy.

George was staring with wide open eyes at his brother and could only mutter. "Fred? Fred? FRED?"

As George seemed to be frozen and Hagrid wasn't doing anything useful either, Harry shouted "George, extinguish the flames."

"Eh, …" he responded with fear in his eyes. Luckily he started doing something again "Agua … Aguamenti"

Although his wave was okay, the stuttering didn't help the incantation. Like any spell that is cast incorrectly, nothing happened and the flames had time to continue playing. The flames didn't seem healthy and if the boy wasn't dead, he was surely dying.

"Hagrid?" He asked.

"No wand" was the response of the large man. He also didn't seem to have his umbrella with him. Even though he didn't think it was useful to give Fred a pigs tail, he would bet that Hagrid could do more with his umbrella. However, he probably left it at home.

Fred was dying and he had to do something. He never used the conjuration charm before but he had seen George use it. In an attempt to conjure the water, he called up all magic that he could collect and concentrated on what he knew of the water conjuration charm.

He felt the nice presence of Hermione in his mind guiding what he should do. The connection felt more alive and more magical than ever before.

As he needed all the magic he could get they both concentrated on the spell. His soulmate was mentally guiding him through all the steps as he made the wave and said the incantation.

"Aguamenti" He shouted with all his voice while the magic flowed from his body to his hands conjuring water from his wand.

At that moment he realized he was not the only one who conjured water. **(2)**

 **-= Charlotte Ryers =-**

Meanwhile a few hundred miles southwards, in Smelting Academy in a small two person dorm were two girls. Despite that Hermione Granger was in a not so mild panic, the other girl Charlotte Ryers happily asleep, unaware of the magical world. She wasn't dreaming, but she had a nice and deep sleep nonetheless. It was a kind of sleep that doesn't leave any memory but one that you still need for that happy feeling when you wake up, telling you that you have slept well. That is, unless you are woken abruptly.

 _ **~WATER~**_ , Charlotte's brain registered while waking up. It only took half a second before she was sitting in her bed not knowing what the hell had happened.

The first thing she registered was her wet face. The next thing she found out is that her bed was wet as well. Her shirt was relatively dry as her blanket caught most of the water.

It was only then that she noticed Hermione being awake.

At the moment, she didn't care what her roommate was thinking. There was no excuse to wake someone in such a way.

"Hermione, do you think that's funny?" she shouted in a high voice while taking a towel to dry herself.

The girl quickly looked at her hands before saying. "No, It was an accident. I swear."

"An accident?" She shouted "How can you throw a bucket of water in my face by accident?"

"I had …, Fred was …, I am sorry." she said, starting a couple of times over, clearly trying to hide something. Normally she finished her sentences.

"Whatever. Don't think we are finished." She said. "And how do you think I should sleep for the rest of the night?"

"Sorry." she said without calming down.

"What?"

"I said I was sorry" she snapped. "Take my bed if you like. I don't think I can sleep much tonight anyway."

"And why is that?" The girl was keeping things from her. Normally she wouldn't have minded if Hermione kept a few secrets, but she needed to be sure that she wouldn't be woken abruptly.

"Nothing. Can't say."

"Sure you can't" she said sarcastically.

"Honestly, I am not allowed to tell you." She told her. That was a weak excuse. She would think more about it in the morning but now she would try to get asleep again.

It took her almost half an hour before she fell asleep again. True to her word, Hermione didn't wake her again. She didn't even try to sleep. The girl read through her biology book as if her life depended on it.

Sometimes, Hermione could be a strange girl. She knew the girl was a study freak, but this was crazy.

 **-= Harry Potter =-**

"Where am I?" The boy who lost half of his red hair, asked in a dry voice. The ash in the air made the talking for him more difficult.

"In a burning forest." Harry said "Can you walk?"

The hurt boy tried to start a sentence, obviously confused "What? How?"

Harry said "Come on we need to get out of here"

"You can lean on me if needed." Hagrid said.

Fred stood up and said half-conscious. "I think I can walk, although my body hurts a lot. "

"There is a lake nearby. We will take you there."

Although the walking was difficult they somehow managed to get Fred to the lake. The fires were at sometimes dangerously close but water conjuration spells helped to make a safer passage. The real danger were falling branches. Now that they knew about them, they were actively looking up. Luckily none of them hit them.

After a travel that took too long, the three of them arrived at the lake.

The rescued redhead visibly relaxed when they stepped in the water. Slowly he became more and more conscious.

The three of them took a couple of minutes to rest. The water was relaxing but they had to keep moving. It wouldn't do to get under-cooled or fall asleep.

"I am worried about Fred." his brother said.

"We can take a look at his wounds" Harry suggested. "But I have no experience in first aid."

With a knife, the three of them cut the cloths of Fred away. When the pieces of fabric were gone it was revealed that the burn wound was much bigger than just the left-side of his face. It covered a large part of his torso and his upper left arm.

"Fred, my brother, you look bad." His brother commented.

"Well, it hurts a lot as well."

"What must we do?" Harry asked.

"Madame Pomfrey will know what to do." George commented. "I remember our first Quidditch match where …"

"She isn't here and we have no way to contact her." Harry reminded them. "Does anyone of you know first aid?"

"No."

"I was afraid so. I guess we will need to work on instinct. Let's keep Fred in the water. It seems to ease his pain."

 _~Hermione, can you go to the school library when it opens at eight in the morning?~_

 _~Sure.~_

 **-= Albus Dumbledore =-**

Professor Dumbledore was in a nice and peaceful dream. Like most dreams it didn't really make sense.

He was talking with his sister Ariana about all kind of socks. He didn't question how she was alive again as it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world. She just showed him a woolen sock that their mom used to wear. Even though it didn't really make sense, it was a happy dream.

That was when he was rudely awoken by a persistent knocking sound which was only interrupted by shouts of "Albus Dumbledore"

It took a few seconds before he realized that the talk about socks with his sister was a dream. Another few seconds were needed to realize that the knocking sound came from someone knocking on the door.

He mentally asked himself what the time was. Using one of his many devices on his nightstand he quickly found out that it was just before twelve O'clock at night.

What on earth did someone think to wake him at this hour?

"Who is it and what do you want?" He asked sleepy as he got out of bed.

"Minerva McGonagall" was answered with a loud and panicked voice. "The forest is on fire, likely with Hagrid and three students in it."

"Which ones?"

"The Weasley twins and Harry Potter." Was answered with a slightly irritated tone. "Does it matter who is in the forest?"

Of course it mattered when the boy who lived was in danger. That said, he couldn't show that favoritism. "A first and two third years know less spells than a newt student so they are in more danger. Mobilize the other teachers as well. Tell them to bring a broom."

"It will be done."

 **-= Harry Potter =-**

Hermione's alarm clock showed 2:13, so it was early in the morning. She couldn't sleep at all, with her bonded Harry in the forbidden forest. The fire was still going on, although it wasn't as aggressive as it first was. Luckily, by being in the water, Harry and the other three boys were out of range.

Fred was doing relatively fine, meaning that his condition hadn't worsened. He seemed to be slightly confused though. Hopefully the log that went against his head, didn't do too much damage. It seemed even with magic that brain damage could be difficult to fix.

While in the lake, harry was on the lookout when he thought he heard a faint shout. It was something like "… ed … ere … you?" but he couldn't understand the words. Harry looked where the sound came from. At first he didn't saw anything through the flaming threes but after a couple of seconds he saw Dumbledore on a broom. Even though he seemed to look around, he hadn't noticed them yet. He was probably too far away.

"Dumbledore is there." **(3)**

"Where?"

"There, on a broom, behind that burning oak." Harry said while pointing to the flyer who was only partly obscured by burning trees.

"I don't see him." George and Hagrid said together.

"We need to draw attention to us." Harry observed. "Dumbledore is flying away again."

George took something out of his pocket that looked somewhat like firework. It wasn't true firework though as it didn't have a fuse. With this it swam to the shore and placed it on the ground, letting it point upwards. Instead of trying to light lit, he touched it with his wand.

The rocket emitted the sound of "Three", clearly counting down.

George ran to the water and dived in when the rocket reached the number "zero".

The rocket went up in the air, with a sound that almost appeared to be laughing. When it exploded, somewhat above the tree-line, there were sparks in many colors. Half a second later, the sparks exploded again, giving even more sparks. Orange, Blue, Pink, Green and white sparks were the most common.

Dumbledore who was almost out of sight, still noticed the sparks. He turned around and came came flying towards them, clearly looking what had created the firework.

When the headmaster was in sight, George shouted, with an amplified voice, to the headmaster getting his attention.

When the old man had seen then, he swept down and hovered right in front of them, above the water.

"Good morning all of you. I don't suppose anyone got Marshmallows." he said in a half-joking voice.

Harry not in the mood for jokes, immediately asked the critical question. "Professor, Fred is wounded. Can you do something?"

The headmaster seemed to switch to a little bit more serious voice. "I can do a few quick healing spells but I think that a visit to madame Pomfrey will be needed. I prefer not to cast healing spells that may accidentally make treatment more difficult later on."

The professor looked to Fred and after a quick examination of the wounds he asked "Can you ride a broom?"

"I think so."

With difficulty, Fred managed to sit on the back of Dumbledore's broom and together they flew away. Harry didn't know whether it was to the increased load or whether the headmaster was just careful, but they seemed to fly slower.

Ten minutes later, harry again saw brooms in the sky. This time it were two brooms and they seemed to know where they needed to go. When they landed, it was clear that it were professor Dumbledore, professor McGonagall and professor Snape.

"Harry, George, Hagrid" professor McGonagall asked in a concerned voice. "Are you okay?"

"Yes" Harry said "a bit tired."

Dumbledore took the word again and gave a couple of orders. "McGonagall, take George with you. Snape take potter with you. I will stay with Hagrid. He is too heavy for a broom."

Harry could swear, Snape looked with disgust to Harry when the headmaster told this. Maybe his head of house disliked it almost as much as he did.

 **-= Albus Dumbledore, 31 May 1992 =-**

It had been a busy night for him and the other professors. Just like him, they didn't seem too happy. After all the lack of sleep was visible to the careful observer.

He noticed he had less tolerance to the noise the children were making during breakfast. Normally he enjoyed it. Now he was secretly wishing he was in bed. He hadn't had a lot of sleep last night. Getting Hagrid out of the forest proved to be tricky, as the half-giant really wanted to check on various creatures.

The man had been almost broken when he discovered that quite a lot of spiders died in the fire. His talk about how the forest will rise again, like a phoenix does, didn't really help his friend despite his best intentions.

He could clearly see that the rather large man sitting on his left, almost had a mental breakdown. Not surprising, based on what happened last night. After breakfast, away from the students eyes he would try to comfort the man again. His not so insignificant influence, would help, to make sure the ministry didn't learn about how the forest burned down. After all, if they would know about the Hagrid raising a Norwegian Ridgeback, he would certainly be sent to Azkaban.

No, Hagrid did not deserve that.

He was thinking what kind of story to tell the ministry tomorrow, when he suddenly heard the owls coming in. The sound of the students chatting was surpassed by the sound of the incoming post-owls. The flapping of the wings and the hooting of the owls who were satisfied when they delivered their letters.

One owl, in particular flew towards Hagrid. It was a brown owl with a ministry seal attached to his left claw. He dropped of a letter in a small envelope.

Hagrid was shaking with fear when he opened the letter. After reading maybe only a single sentence, he burst down in tears.

Dumbledore took the letter and read it. The letter raised a lot of questions. How did the ministry get this efficient? How did they learn about the dragon?

Clearly, someone in the ministry was being prepared for this. Who was it? And most importantly, could he keep Hagrid out of Azkaban?

He didn't want to say it, but he doubted it.

 **-= Hermione Granger =-**

Meanwhile a few hundred miles southwards, in Smelting Academy in a small two person dorm were two girls. Despite that Charlotte Ryers was holding a glass of water, ready to throw, the other girl Hermione Granger happily asleep, unaware of the sudden wakening she would feel in a couple of seconds. She wasn't dreaming, but she had a nice and deep sleep nonetheless. The dream was not natural but instead worked because her soulmate Harry had drunken a sleeping draught. It was a kind of sleep that is deeper than any natural sleep. One that can help you process the memories of an eventful and dangerous night. That is, unless you are woken abruptly.

 **~WATER~** they both registered.

 **Author Notes:**

 **(1): I am aware that DNA in twins is not exactly equal. Mutations typically cause a couple of differences between the DNA strings. Harry, having only limited knowledge of biology, is not aware of this. Luckily for the magic they are similar enough.**

 **(2): Accidental magic that cannot be easily reproduced.**

 **(3): I have chosen for Harry to have decent glasses that correct most of Harry's eyesight. His eyesight is still horrible without the glasses. This is based on the fact that Harry is a seeker in canon.**

 **The release frequency will be changed to match my writing speed. Sorry guys but I can't write a chapter like this every two weeks so the schedule is now 1 chapter per 4 weeks.**


	12. Y1: Preparing for Trial

_Last Chapters: Harry, George and Hagrid rescued Fred out of a burning forest. Hagrid got a letter from the ministry who was influenced by Lucius Malfoy._

 **A/N: I made a mistake in the forest fire in the last two chapters. It turned out the lake was quite dangerous. Smoke is the number one cause of death in fires. Carbon monoxide, being heavier than air, would gather above the lake, as it is the lowest point. With all the carbon-monoxide, the four people wouldn't have had a chance. Please DO NOT use a story as safety manual but treat it like fiction as it is.**

 **-= Ginny Weasley, Sunday 31 May 1992, Morning =-**

When she felt solid ground under her feet again, Ginny let go of her Father's hand. Even though the unnatural pressure on her body had ended, she still felt dizzy. She felt like she was just pulled through a tube, with a rope tied to her waist.

For a moment she thought that she was adjusting well but then she felt a bad taste in her mouth. Instinctively knowing what would come, she bended over as she felt the breakfast going out the same way as it went in.

"Everything alright?" her mother asked.

"I really hate apparition" she commented with the sour taste still in her mouth.

"Don't worry, a lot of people vomit the first time." her mother answered while conjuring a glass of water. She was really glad that her mother was that thoughtful.

While drinking the water, Ginny took time to look around. She heard a lot about this place but she had never been here.

She was standing on an old train platform. The tree of them were the only people on the platform, who used to be clean before she vomited. A large blue board with white letters showed that the station was called "Hogsmeade".

At one side she saw a village which she knew had the same name. The buildings had steep roofs and between the buildings she could see some people walk. It was however too far away to see who they were.

At the other side she saw a stone fence. Behind the fence she could see a dozen towers. She thought that it would certainly be Hogwarts castle. The place where they were heading towards.

She looked for her father. She saw him, a dozen meters away, walking over a path to an iron gate in the wall. When he looked back at her, she could see the worry in his eyes, despite the smile he tried to construct. Did he know why they were summoned or did he, just like her have no clue.

She walked towards him again and looked at the gate. She could see the whole castle radiating magic. The towers, many of which she could not see before, defied natural construction logic, just like the burrow. A hundred windows looked out of the castle. It seemed and probably also was huge.

In the lake she could see the reflection of the strange building. This would have been a beautiful scene if it wasn't for the forest. On the right of the lake she saw a burned down forest. The trees were like black lines that formed a large contract of the white smoke that erupted from the ground. Charcoal was still glowing with an orange light. In must have been a recent fire or it would have been stopped by now. It was really sad to see nature being destroyed in this way.

She was a bit surprised when her father pushed the gate open. At first she expected the gate to be locked. After all, why would you have a gate when you don't lock it. Then she looked at the fences and remembered that everyone with a broom could enter anyway, so a lock wouldn't be very useful.

The gates would instead be ceremonial. It told people that they were entering the Hogwarts properties.

She took a breath before stepping through the gate with her father. Entering the ground felt like a big step even though the distance of her step was rather small. She didn't know if she imagined it, but she thought she could even feel the wards when entering.

While walking towards the castle, a million questions went through her mind. What was hogwarts like? Why were they called? Professor McGonagall informed them, this morning, that they were requested to be at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, the message didn't say why they should come. Undoubtedly this was because what one of her brothers had done. She didn't knew what brother had done something, but knowing her brothers she was willing to bet it was the twins.

Another option was that it was because of the letter correspondence between Arthur and Dumbledore in the last few months. Dumbledore had send them six letters and Arthur answered them quickly. She had no idea where the letters were about as he didn't spoke about them in her presence. She knew that Arthur archived all of them, so she came up with a plan. She was so curious that she sneaked down in the middle of the night trying to read them. Unfortunately she couldn't open the folder containing the letters. It was magically sealed and after half an hour of trying she gave up and went back to bed. Her parents never found out.

Still those thoughts didn't help to answer any question why they were here. For a moment she tried distracting herself by thinking of the environment instead. Not that it really worked. At first she asked herself what it would be like to stay at Hogwarts but soon she had questions in her head like how the forest burned down. She wondered whether the twins were involved. It would be too much for a prank, but it could be a prank that had gone bad. Was this why they were here?

When they walked into the castle she looked around with her eyes wide open.

A tall, gray-haired witch walked towards them. The emerald green color of her robes made her think of the boy who she loved reading about. That was before he was sorted into Slytherin. The day she heard that, was a black day. She realized that her Harry Potter book collection were fakes. Otherwise, how could Gryffindors heir be sorted there? After all he was supposed to have single handedly defeated over half a dozen dragons and other XXXXX creatures.

"Good morning Arthur, Molly" the woman said. "And you must be Ginny?"

"Yes." she said a bit shyly.

"I am Professor McGonagall, head of the house of Gryffindor, where your brothers are in." the woman told her giving only a short introduction. To all three she continued: "I must regretfully inform you three that Fred and George have been injured last night."

She was still processing the message when her mother shouted on her usual shouting tone. "WHAT?

HOW DID THEY GET IN INJURED?

ARE THEY IN THE HOSPITAL WING OR WHAT?

ISN'T HOGWARTS SUPPOSED TO KEEP THEM SAFE?

FIRST RON AND NOW THEM."

Somehow, the professor didn't back down. "The twins were injured in a burning forest. They are in the hospital wing. Hogwarts is trying it's best to keep all its students safe. If you would like to follow me to the hospital, we can see how they are doing."

Her father nodded and they started walking.

Ginny didn't know the way, so she kept close to her father. Normally she would have enjoyed seeing all the portraits on the walls. The moving staircases would have fascinated her. Even the ghosts would have been interesting, despite the fact that they were a little bit scary. However, with her worrying about her two brothers, she didn't think about any of it.

She was instead listening to how the professor told what happened in their last detention. Most of it was directed to her parents, but she was curious as well. When she heard that the detention would be in the forest, she was worried. She couldn't help to think about that burned down place she just walked by, when walking to the castle.

When she heard that Harry had helped saving Fred, she thought whether he could still have some Gryffindor traits. It didn't sound like something a Slytherin would do. Would the books be true anyway? She would puzzle about it later.

Finally, the came to the door of the hospital wing and she was desperate to go inside. The professor stopped her for a moment. She squatted down to look her in the eye, before telling her "I must warn you that Fred's wounds look terrible."

"I don't care. I want to see my brothers."

"They are on a sleeping draught and will not be able to talk. Don't you want to wait till the worst wounds are treated and you are able to speak with them?"

"No" she answered while walking to the door. "Don't treat me like a little child. I am almost eleven."

"That is also why I give you a choice." the professor told her in a gentle voice. . "You can enter the room, if you like. I am just advising you to wait till the wounds are healed."

"I want to see them now." Ginny said to her.

True to her word, McGonagall didn't stop her.

When she went inside she saw three people lying in bed. At the first bed, Madame Pomfrey was trying to convince Harry Potter that he had to go back to sleep. The boy refused the dreamless sleep potion. She didn't really care either way though.

In the second bed she saw one of the twins. He had a pajama on and was asleep. He didn't appear to have any wounds. By the lack of visible wounds, this would likely be George.

Fred's bed was still a bit obscured by the first two people. She did not notice the shocked faces of her parents. The fact that they could look over the bed and already see fred, escaped her mind completely. That was why she chose to walk further, to look at her other brother.

When she saw Fred, she saw the most horrible wounds. It would not be that they were the worst she could imagine, because she couldn't phantom anything like this.

It was that she knew that this should be her brother, but she didn't recognize him.

Part of his chest and face were blackened, resembling the color of charcoal. This contrasted with the round red swollen pieces of skin that were at the center of the wound. At some points there were pieces of robe sticking out of his wounds.

His face seemed to have lost most of it's features. His eyebrows were gone and the skin around the eyes was swollen, making it difficult to look into them.

All in all, a troll looked more beautiful and a hag would look more human-like.

Unable to think of anything better, she burst down in tears. Water rolled over her face blurring her vision. She wondered whether Fred could make a recovery. With the severity of the wounds she saw, she doubted it.

That was when she felt her Father's hand, on her shoulder. It was rather comfortable. "Don't worry Ginny. There are spells to treat burn wounds."

Not sure whether she believed it or not, she asked the first question that came up in her mind "Why aren't they used yet?"

"I don't know Ginny." Her father answered honestly. "Maybe we should ask Madame Pomfrey."

She was secretly being glad for the suggestion. Walking to the nurse would mean that she didn't have to look at the abomination. "Sure" she said, trying not to show the disgust she felt for the image of Fred. Maybe the professor was right and she should have stayed behind.

"Madame Pomfrey" her father started. "We were wondering if you could give us an update on the health of my children."

"Sure. The only one I know that has serious wounds is Fred. George and Harry are fine. Professor Snape is currently brewing a potion which should cure the burn wounds."

"That's a relief" her father told her. "So when will this potion be ready?"

"He will try to finish it before one O'clock. After that it takes a few hours to take effect. After that …"

Her mother interrupted the nurse and asked "Ah, so Fred will be like himself in no time?"

"His burn wounds will be treated. The skin will most likely be a tint paler, but that is not dangerous." the nurse told them. "However. I fear for his mental capabilities."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" mum asked in a not so friendly tone.

"Well, according to Harry, Fred was found with a log near his head. If that thing knocked him unconscious, he may have a concussion or brain damage. As you may be aware, brain injuries is one of the few things magic cannot cure."

"WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR FRED?"

"As I was saying, brain damage has been studied very little. Each injury is different from the others. To know for sure if and how this impacts Fred's abilities, we have to wait. I can imagine this is difficult. I can't help you giving this information sooner."

 **-= Stanley Bates, Monday 1 June 1992, Just after lunch=-**

Stanley was very nervous. He had asked his boss, Roland Akers if he could talk to him, in private. The man agreed. Based on what he found in the boss's hidden notes, he thought it would be best to cooperate together. The problem was, that he shouldn't tell that he went through the boss's notes. That was why he needed to focus on his own finding. The question was whether the boss would believe him. It wouldn't help his career, if your boss thought you were mad.

That was why he was reciting the planned conversation in his head. He did that at least a dozen times since the start of the lunch break. He took a deep breath and knocked on the door. This would be the moment that he gambled his career.

"Come in agent Bates."

"Good afternoon. I have a difficult case, where every question being answered leads to a dozen new questions."

"Okay, what is it about."

"Five unresolved reports on child abuse of the same child with most likely influence of some kind of organized crime. I also believe the parents of said child may have been murdered."

"That's an unusual combination of crimes for a case. Are you sure they are related?"

"Not completely of course, but let me tell what I found out."

"Sure."

"It all started, last year, when my son accidentally overheard two students. Hermione Granger was threatening Dudley Dursley's family with what I now believe to be a liquidation. Her words were something like that she would inform the other authorities."

"That is hardly enough to be called threatening with liquidation." the boss observed. "Aren't you making things up"

Damn. This was going the wrong way. He would need to present his findings before being questioned. "At first, I didn't believe it either. However, Dudley has a cousin, Harry Potter. His parents were most likely liquidated. If that happened, a thread of a second liquidation wouldn't be too far fetched."

He had deliberately omitted the method of liquidation. Knowing his boss, he would ask that question directly afterwards. When it did, he knew his answer would have a bigger impact.

"That is the strange thing. It isn't known. All we know is that it wouldn't be logical for both parents to have died of a heart attack in the same night."

"Did you say BOTH died of a heart attack?" his boss asked with renewed interest. Did his tactic work?

"Yes, but I don't think the death had been natural."

"Obviously not." His boss said. Let me check something.

He took his notebook out of the drawer and began looking through it. Stanley immediately recognised the book and knew what his boss would be looking for. This was going well. It was a smart movement to tell the man about the death, even though he read it from the same book.

"And Hermione knew about this?"

"I have no proof about that, but I do know that Hermione does know about Harry Potter. She had filed a case of child abuse against the Dursley's."

"That is hardly a crime."

"Let me rephrase that, There are four people who filed reports of child abuse against the Dursleys. she filed a case of child abuse, together with three other persons. In various cases, serious mistakes were made during investigation. The question is whether they were actual mistakes." He said that while handing him over the five reports together with his own notes.

After briefly looking through the five reports, his boss asked him "Stanley, what is your best guess how these mistakes happened."

"I guess money is involved, but I do not know from who to who."

"Why do you say that?"

"When I took my son from school, we overheard a conversation between Hermione and Vernon Dursley. In this conversation I learned a couple of things. First of all, Vernon kept something in his cupboard. He didn't want the freaks, whoever they are, to learn about it. Secondly, the freaks owed the Dursleys thirty-thousand pounds. My personal guess is that the Dursleys are drugs traders of some kind, but I cannot be sure."

"Is that all?"

"I think so. You do believe me?"

"Yes I do, but only because I once looked at a similar case. We need more evidence to even consider bringing them to court. I believe this to be big."

Stanley nodded "Given how the child abuse cases were closed, we may have an insider. I think it is wise to discuss this case on a need-to-know basis. Understood?"

"Yes."

"Good. I want to inform you about another strange case as they seem to be connected. Don't worry about interrupting me, as I welcome fresh ideas."

"Okay." Stanley said, having a pretty good idea what the case was. He had thought about some notes but didn't really have any new ideas. Maybe the description of his boss would trigger something.

"I have found, in the computer systems several families who were killed in a similar way. According to the medical records, all members died of a heart attack. The heart attack happened to all members of the family on the same evening."

"That is strange. Could it be carbon-monoxide that came free."

"That was my first idea as well. Still medical personnel can see the difference from it, using blood samples."

And that is done.

"According to the medical terms, yes. I have asked the doctors who signed the papers, whether they have an explanation."

"That is a wise decision. Why did they sign the papers?"

"They most likely didn't sign the papers. According to every single doctor I asked they don't remember any case. Some of them thought someone tried to fake him. One accused me that my 'prank' was going too far. A few thought someone was deliberately trying to end their careers."

"How so?"

"I suppose you have heard of the holocaust."

After seeing stanley nodding, his boss continued. "In many concentration camps, a lot of people were killed by the nazi regime. For the official records, they wrote down fake causes of death. One of the causes of death that was often used was heart attacks."

"So the doctors were afraid to be compared to the war crimes of Germany. After all if they are linked with that, it could end their careers." Stanley concluded "What do you think. Are the doctors responsible?"

"My gut feeling says no but I have no evidence to back it up."

"So someone is masking the true cause of deaths of innocent citizens."

"Most likely"

"What can we do?"

"Unfortunately very little. From hard experience I know that it is very difficult getting any warrant in these kind of warrant in those strange cases."

"So, what do we do?"

"We cannot do anything right now. Instead we have to wait for an opportunity."

 **-= Charlotte Ryers, Wednesday 3 June 1992 =-**

"Dudley" she asked, not knowing who else to turn to. She already tried asking Hermione multiple times about it, but her roommate evaded every answer. As Charlotte desperately wanted to know what was going on, she tried to look for other sources.

"Miss Ryers" the fat boy called him in a hateful tone. "Go back to your freaky friend Hermione"

"Please don't speak that tone to me." she told him. "I wanted to ask whether you could help me solve a mystery."

"Why me? I don't really like puzzles."

"Maybe, I am wrong, but I really hope you could give me some information. Hermione is acting strange this year. I have asked her about it, but she evades all answers."

"In what way?" The boy asked.

She really didn't want to tell that boy a lot. After all anything she would tell him, he could use against her. She settled for some public information though. "Just before the Christmas vacation, Hermione had an argument with you and your father. I didn't really understand a lot of it. I think you know more ."

The boy seemed to think for a bit before saying "I can't tell a lot about that. I guess there are questions I may be able to answer about other incidents though."

Great. The boy was fishing for information. What should she give? She shouldn't tell about the bucket of water. That would just be mean.

Could she tell about the things in her agenda? She didn't see any problem in that. "In Hermione's agenda there are several terms I don't understand. I would like to know what they mean."

"What kind of words?" The boy asked with worry in his voice. It was almost as if the boy didn't want to know.

"Well, I encountered charms practical …"

The boy shook his head in an unconvincing manner.

"… potions exam …"

The boy continued shaking his head. It was way too fast to be natural.

"… and trial Hagrid"

"WHAT? HAGRID? THAT BASTARD GAVE ME A …" He said in a very angry voice, before realizing that he shouldn't have said that.

"So you know Hagrid?"

"No I don't know him at all" the boy said in a worried voice. His anger was still there, but he was really trying to suppress it.

"But you just said that he gave you something. What did he give you?"

"I was confused with someone else." The boy said "But when was his trial?"

The boy was clearly lying, but she knew he wanted to know that date. After a few seconds of thinking, she realized that all trial dates are public anyway. She wouldn't give any secret away. Knowing this, she said. "Okay, we can make a deal. You tell me something about Hagrid and I will tell you the date of the trial."

"That's a deal." He said after a short time. He started a story, often stopping to think. "Hagrid is a very large … and evil man. The day I met him, he broke down our front door with it's bare hands. He … kidnapped my cousin and brought him to … London. … That was despite my parents explicit words, that he was not allowed to go. … A few weeks later, we were … attacked in our own house. The attackers … wore skull masks. The two men were … armed and they … hurt my father very much. We are lucky to be alive. I never want to have anything to do with those freaks again."

"Wow." She had to admit that it was a good story. She didn't believe half of what was told. Still she had to keep her part of the deal.

"The trial is on Friday 12 June 1992."

 **-= Quinn, Friday 5 June 1992, 7:23 PM =-**

As the largest and most important gargoyle of Hogwarts, Quinn was proudly guarding the gate to the headmasters office. He stood still, like statues should stand still. Only his eyes moved slightly, making sure he knew exactly who was in the corridor.

In the corner of his eye, he saw a small man with a light-grey beard approach. The man looked like Filius Flitwick. After that, he heard the man's almost silent walking, typical for Flitwick. Most people he would hear before he could see them, but Flitwick's unusual walking pattern, made him almost silent for those without his superior hearing.

When the short man came closer, the distinct goblin-like smell entered his nose. This smell was typical for the smell Flitwick had.

He checked the castle magic for the name, which was Filius Flitwick. As all four sources agreed that it was Filius Flitwick, that was probably it's name.

Checking the name on the white-list revealed unsurprisingly that the man was on the white-list. Even though no modifications have been made to the list in the last 684 years and that every wizard and witch was on the list, he still had to follow the protocol.

It did make his life a bit boring, though. He would enjoy very much to ask whether the whitelist needed to be changed, but no that was no part of the protocol. He was not allowed to speak unless the headmaster asked him questions. And none of the last 17 headmasters did that.

As he was not allowed to speak, he erupted a silencing field and silently waited for a password.

The half-goblin answered with the correct password, the name of the red planet. According to protocol, he stepped aside and let the professor enter.

 **-= Filius Flitwick =-**

Flitwick waited a few moments, before knocking on the door. Previous experience showed him that the headmaster always asked him in anyway. After half a minute, he became tired of it and raised his hand to knock.

That was the moment when the headmaster called him in. Slightly curious why he was called, he entered the office.

"Good Evening" he greeted his old friend. "Why did you call me?"

"What are your plans for Hagrid's trial on next friday?"

"I wish to attend it of course." he told the headmaster. "That means that I will not be able to keep an eye on the students. I hope that this will not be a problem."

"I will make sure there is sufficient staff, even if I have to hire some external people for the day."

"Thank you. It means a lot."

"You're welcome." The old man told him "As you know I will attend the trial myself as chief warlock."

If it wasn't for his goblin blood flowing through his veins, he knew he would feel much more pity for the old man. As chief warlock, he was expected to stay neutral through the trial. That would be difficult, for most humans, when the trial concerned a friend. Instead he didn't feel sorry for the man.

"I think you will do a good job." he told him.

"I will do my best." the old man answered back. "Unfortunately, due to my role, I cannot represent Hagrid during the trial."

"I understand." he told the headmaster, completely understanding his problem. "You wanted to know whether I wanted to represent Hagrid at the trial."

He could see the old man trying to come up with a lengthy answer, before he said a single word. "Yes"

It was time to name his price. "I will ask 6 sickles for sitting the trial, 18 sickles for researching his trial beforehand and a bonus of 5 galleons if I can get him free."

He knew that it wasn't really expensive, but his goblin blood didn't allow him doing these kind of things for free. In the goblin culture, it was an insult to someone's talent to request them doing something without pay. It told the other person that you didn't really value it. On the other hand, asking too much was a sign of greed, even if the other man offered it. Because he wasn't sure about his skills, he asked for a bonus if he could succeed. That would be the only honorable way.

"Would you ask money for trying to save a friend?" The headmaster asked, trying to play on his guild. Instead it made him feel angry for the insult that had been given.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to focus on a solution. His human blood did help him distinguish between insults on purpose and those that were accidentally made. Dumbledore clearly was in the second category.

There was only one answer possible. In a raised voice he spoke to the headmaster. "Based on the goblin values I was raised with, I learned that not paying someone is a lack of respect. Therefore I asked a price I thought to be fair. Know though that if it was someone I didn't like, the price would have been much higher. So, do you want to rent my service?"

"I can do the research of the trial. How will that affect the price."

"That will be 6 sickles for representing Hagrid during the trial. Should we win I will be entitled one fourth of the bonus of 5 galleons, rounded to the nearest knut. The other part of the bonus goes to you. Is that a deal?"

"Yes, that is a deal."

 **-= Dudley Dursley, Monday 8 June 1992 =-**

In primary school Dudley didn't have to do any work. His cousin did his homework and sometimes even his tests in the same way as he was made doing chores at home. It was the freaks duty to make sure he succeeded at classes.

He expected Smeltings to be the same. Somehow he didn't realize that his cousin wouldn't go and he assumed that he would find a way not to do his homework. He didn't know how wrong he would be.

Because of the absence of the Potter boy he needed to find an alternative victim. His second plan had been to bully a smart student like he used to bully his cousin. He or she would do his homework.

His initial target had been a black haired girl called Angie Harden. She was smart, shy and easy to bully. For a few weeks she did what she was supposed to. She made his homework and his marks were good. Based on the marks of the assignments, he didn't need to score that well on the actual tests to get a decent average.

Then Hermione Granger began to meddle with his life, ruining it. If she would just try to bully him, he would have made sure she was thought a lesson. Instead, she threatened him and his family that he had to stop his 'bullying'. Not that he was really doing that. It was more like punishing people for not doing his homework. It was similar to how his father punished Harry when he didn't do his chores. There was nothing wrong with that. What right did that girl have to say what he was or wasn't allowed to do? What right did she have to break the family tradition?

Unable to do much about her, he had been in several detentions for not doing his homework. At the tests before the Christmas break he had scored badly. He only scored a sufficient for PE.

After Christmas he had started to make homework. It would stop the detentions and he actually saved time with it. He had to do something to hand in and if nobody else made it, then he had to do it. Surprisingly he did feel more attached to the work when it was handed back. Even more surprising was that the homework became easier over time.

Still this didn't mean that he would not take revenge on that Granger girl. He had been planning for a long time, but it was difficult. It needed to be something that would expel Hermione and that wasn't easy to link back to him.

When he found out, that the school had a strict anti-drugs policy, he came up with a brilliant plan. He had already bought the materials.

During the gymnastics lesson on Friday the 12th he would sneak into the changing room. In Hermione's bag, he would place some illegal 'drugs'. Later that day, he would give an anonymous hint. That would bring problems to Hermione. If that influenced the trial of Hagrid, it was all the better. After all that evil man did give him a pigs tail.

 **A/n: Sorry, for not letting much happen in this scene.** **I had to prepare the pieces for the day of Hagrid's trial. Given how much chaos I am planning, I doubt I will be able to fit it in one chapter.**

 **A** **s a side-note I started improving my earlier chapters.** **I make no major changes but just improve the writing.** **Was I really that bad? Am I still that bad or did I improve. I really hope I did.**


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